Day 403 – Beyond Depression

Good morning World,

It’s been a while… I have been going plumb crazy and breaking down in all manner of ways in the past month since I’ve written, but today the break down has stopped.

The sweet release is over. Shall I tell you what has happened? The things that I didn’t feel like writing about? Eye infections with unknown sources and unknown cures, random shoulder and neck pain, going to a new doctor and having my back injected with needles transmitting more than 15 packs of sugar water into my sensitive body, having uncontrollable body tremors and anxiety everywhere as a result of said procedure, getting duped by Sir Deplier after he didn’t pay me for some work I had done for him, being broke, broke, broke… officially quitting my job, my friend/protector/angel moving out… really exploring the depths of depression… being fed up with and ignoring most of my family… hmmm … and just wanting to go and hide in a cave for the rest of my life.

That’s what I’ve been doing this past month. Right now I’m in Hawaii helping my mom babysit my sisters’ three kids while my sisters are out of town. I had to write today. It has been too long. I don’t know if anything good will come out of my mouth, but we’ll see.

I want to talk about depression. And breaking down. And starting over. Or not… I have been beyond depressed this past month. You see, when you’re depressed, at least you can cry or whatever or mope around and feel sorry for yourself. When you’re beyond depressed, you don’t even want to cry. You don’t want to slit your wrist. You don’t want to yell. You don’t want to fight anyone. You don’t want to go try and do anything or try and prove anything to anyone. You don’t want to make peace. You don’t even want to make war. You could care less about moving forward. You could care less about moving backwards. And yet, you don’t even want to tap out and quit this life… And a part of you knows that if you sit around and let everything go to shit, you’re still gonna be around and you’re gonna have to deal with that shit… And you don’t even care about that.

And for the past month, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do when you don’t even care about being depressed… And some words are coming to me right now that have come to me over the years from different people… “Be kind to yourself”. I first heard those words from my supervisor when I was 26 years old and working my first fancy job alongside mostly men twice my age. The men would always try and sabotage my efforts to do my job right, and the only one who was helping me was my supervisor, who was the supervisor of the whole department. And one day I was feeling really bad about another stunt that one of my coworkers had pulled, and my supervisor told me to be kind to myself…

A little nine month old baby just woke up in the crib next to me. My niece. One of the coolest babies ever. She doesn’t cry. She just looks at you and smiles and crawls around trying to put things in her mouth. She’s beautiful… I will make this entry short so that I can hug her and smell her baby skin and change her diaper and feed her. It is good for me to be around these little people who only care about loving and sharing and being taken care of…

I want this to be as real as possible. This stuff is not easy. In fact, it will shake you to the bone. What stuff, you ask? It’s not learning how not to cry every day. It’s learning how to live. Authentically. For real. It’s learning how to have a clean heart. That’s the hard part. It’s learning how to get up and do anything when there is absolutely nothing in your life that you look forward to. The hard part is not being happy. The hard part is being honest.

My life has fallen apart. That’s the honest truth. It has been falling apart for some time. And I have been trying to hold on to the pieces. And as I am writing this, I realize that I have been trying to hold on to a thing that I didn’t really want. I asked for this. You see, I didn’t really want my old life. I mean, I may have wanted the external trappings: money, career, man, family; but I didn’t want the inner feelings: constant feelings of guilt, resentment, sadness, isolation, confusion, drama… No. On a cellular level, I didn’t want any of that any more. I didn’t want the dynamic that I had with many of my family members. I didn’t like the way my relationships were with the men I was dating. I haven’t liked my job in ages, and money? Well… I did like money, lol, but that’s the only thing from my past that I would like to keep.

And so life had to fall apart if I was going to move forward. And now that everything has broken, I mean everything… everything, I get to see if I believe in any of the many self-help books that I have read. I have always been a teacher. I get to see if I can take my own advice and create a life from scratch. But not just any life. A dream life. Yes. A real dream. Not a desperate get any man get any job live anywhere do anything to eat kind of life. A dream life. A kind life. An honest life. I get to see if I can be a big girl and even make peace and say sorry to the people who I feel wronged by. I get to see if I can actually forgive. See, stuff got real, and there is much to forgive. I get to see if I can know how to be loving yet strong and powerful and safe. I always talk about magic. Well, I get to see if I can do magic, and make money show up out of nowhere. Since I have no values anymore, I get to choose them now and see who I really want to be. I guess I should be saying I have to do these things instead of saying that I get to do these things.

Because this is the only way out for me. This is the only way out of beyond depression…

Another baby just came into the room laughing and smiling. My four-year-old nephew. He is pretending to be a jaguar… smh…

I have reached a point of no return. Popcorn no longer fills me up. Mundane things no longer interest me. I have to be honest. I want real stuff. Relationships where there is no malice or resentment in the air. Truth. Integrity. Meaningful work. I need to stand up and express the fullness of who I am. My sexy self and everything. (I have come to terms with the fact that I’m sexy).. It is time. I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do when I get off this blog. Maybe I’ll go hug my mom. Because she really needs a loving hug and I really want to hug her. All of this holding back has been killing me. All of this fear has been draining my life.

How do you move from beyond depression? Well, I’m not going to lie to you. There is no magic pill. There is no special book or big secret. It is different for everyone. You might not be able to think yourself out of it. You may not be able to pray yourself out of it. You may not be able to take any action, and if you are beyond depression, then you probably won’t even want to take any action. But you do have one tool: the greatest tool ever. Your will. And it’s funny. The will to live is very strong even in many people who think they want to die. You don’t even have to be willing to live. Sometimes everything is supposed to fall apart. Sometimes things seem terrible, but you are being chastened and refined. You are becoming the Truth of who you are. Stick around and be willing to be willing. Start there. Just be willing to stick around…

Love,

Laydie

Day 403
Beyond Depression