It was a storm that struck last night. Going to work I had a sense of futility, of hopelessness. It was as if it had always been thus. I got to work and I couldn't deal with anything. I had zero motivation. I didn't want to talk to my co-workers; the idea of interacting with customers filled me with despair. I wanted to yell at everyone to fuck off, I hated them all, everything was bleak and lifeless and shitty.
I withdrew, isolated myself, took myself off to do any job I could do alone. I couldn't face people, with their empty sallow faces, their inane grinding chatter. Trying to smile and follow conversations and force out replies exhausted me, made my eyes want to lose focus and roll back.
So I went off to fill in paperwork and clean lines and put the beer garden away, unhappy yet mercifully alone in my skull.
But that is when the negative rumination started up. How the podcasts I'd been listening to earlier that day were all created by people doing something worthwhile, telling stories, giving voices to the voiceless, informing, educating, entertaining, while all I was doing with this blog was writing the same old self-obsessed rubbish over and over, always about myself, about how miserable I am, moaning, whining, or else how amazing I've been, slapping myself on the back because I've managed to get out of bed at 10am, walk to the shops, attend a social gathering without bursting into tears and running home like a disgusting coward with my tail between my legs. That everything I praise myself for is something that normal people have figured out by the time they're out of secondary school, here I am 33 and still barely able to function. That I can't write and all the blogging is pathetic and even if I could write I should be writing fiction or journalism or nice funny little reviews, instead of listing all my disgusting lame failures like anyone cares, worthless fucking loser, what a pathetic crock of shit.
- - -
So that's what was in my head. It wasn't nice, but that's what it was. And I kept trying to argue against it, but it was like talking rationally into a thunderstorm. Every time I opened my mouth the storm just roared louder.
But I did keep trying. I didn't give up entirely. I was forced to my knees but I didn't allow myself to be blown away. I said to the storm that I was going to continue writing no matter what. That humans are creative beings, life itself is creative, and however we express that, in dumb journals or pencil doodles or building model train sets, it is worthwhile for its own sake, as a function of the universe. That the storm sounded like people who bullied me decades ago at school, that it didn't apply now, that I didn't have to listen. That it was mental illness, depression, that it would pass.
And as I argued the storm would subside a little, and I would get on with whatever task I was doing, and as soon as I was distracted the winds would start up howling again. And I talked it down again. And then it was winning again. And then I couldn't see anything but storm. And then I talked it down again.
And the night went by.
- - -
I felt groggy and blue when I woke up today, but I've spent the day writing, listening to more podcasts, doing washing, reading, keeping myself busy.
21:35 now, and I actually feel better. Maybe it's a temporary abatement, but I'm hoping the worst of the storm has passed.
Here's what I want to take from this, because I think meaning gets to be what we choose it to be. I want to take from this that I am making incredible progress. This time five years ago I would simply have been the storm, destroying everything in my path, raging, tearing apart my heart. This time a few months ago I would have collapsed in front of the storm and let it crash around me, then reached for the whisky to fill up my body so there was nothing left dry enough for the winds to wreck.
Yet last night I stood up, unsteadily, I argued, quietly, and at no point did I entirely give up. The storm did win yesterday, and this morning, but I think I tempered it somewhat.
And I was present enough to really hear that negative voice, to pay attention, to remember what it said. And so much of what it said was outright lies, or exaggeration, or really skewed logic. None of it stands up to scrutiny. It's loud, furious, but devoid of meaning.
There are grains of truth within it, often -- like last night, in that eventually I would like for my writing to be more outward focused, for me to take more risks -- but that grain is so buried in layers of bile and hatred that all it does is cause me harm.
Which of course is the point. The voice doesn't care about the truth, it just uses a touch of it to trick me into swallowing the bile, because that makes me sick and stops me writing. And the voice doesn't want me to write, it wants me small and meek and safe. It's the voice, in fact, that causes my writing to be inward looking, because it's hard to plan for anything else when you've got negative crap yelled at you day and night.
So good try, depression, but try harder. I'm not going anywhere yet.
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