Running from Depression.
The curse of a workaholic.
My therapist tells me I’m a workaholic because it’s my escape from depression — that I’m Running from it instead of facing it, but doc that’s the only thing I have that keeps me from going insane; and it’s not hurting anybody else.
I wish that it was easier to explain than it is to be understood, what it feels like to live in depression and wake up in the middle of the night…
Sweaty, heart beating like it’s going to explode, brain’s all clogged up, and my hands and legs won’t stop shaking — until I finally work up the courage to barely hold myself over the toilet so that my face doesn’t drop in it.
I don’t doubt for a second that medication helped me get better, but that was only a small part of how far I’ve come in life.
Knowing full well, always convincing myself — man I’d never be good enough.
I work myself to death, because I don’t want it ever to stop or give it a break to go back to that place that I hate going to.
I’m scared and I’m running from it, but right now that’s the only viable option I have.
I don’t know how else to stop it, and all I can do is take this curse and turn it into something productive.
If I’m not working, I’m going down the rabbit hole which is my brain…and man it’s scary.
Especially when it’s impossible to explain to anybody else how it feels when I’m told “It’ll pass, It’ll get better, You’ll be okay…”, I know they mean well but they’re just words to me.
They probably will never know how it feels to be constantly living in a cloud of sadness and being unable to express myself fully when I’m overcome with joy.
Even through some of my greatest accomplishments, I avoided attending the ceremony that followed.
I hating cutting the cake on my birthday, same as I did when I asked to take centre-stage after being awarded my doctorate.
I was afraid, and honesty was all I had to work with.
It came off as rude, mean spirited, and ungrateful.
But it was honest. And that’s all I had to say,
“I wish that in this moment I could fully express how I feel. Unfortunately, I’m unable to do so. I’ll stick to saying Thank you and hope that you’ll understand, I’m just uncomfortable with success being celebrated.”
I work in three different time-zones, and I’ve come to love that — because it keeps me busy.
When I run out of work to do, I resort to writing — which is really the best part of writing, it doesn’t have the constraints of a 9 to 5 schedule.
I can do it on my own terms, and I can do it constantly.
It helps my brain from driving me insane.
I gave up on the idea that anybody will ever understand what I go through on a daily basis, because it just sounded like whining constantly to them.
I stopped expressing myself, because why waste time on something nobody is trying to understand.
I relate to children and elderly people — because they both seem to share the same sense of “Fearlessness”.
Children aren’t worried about their future and elderly people have already been through it.
Both children and elderly people love is, well — good company.
When I’m not working, I’m helping out at an elderly people’s home.
Not because I need to, but because I like to.
I like listening to the stories most of the staff there is tired of.
I like listening to stories that they have to share because it makes me feel happy that I can be someone they can talk to.
No matter, where the stories go; they usually don’t go anywhere — but they do provide me with inspiration and wisdom.
And I’d take that over a night of partying any day.
I’d take that over a drunken night of debauchery which will only do me harm, and no good.
Working myself to death became my formula for survival, if I wasn’t working — I was depressed, and on the brink of breaking.
When I’m working, at the end of the day — all I’m really thinking about is, I can’t wait to go to bed; to wake up the next day and do it all over again.
Being labelled a “workaholic” has its downside, friends will hate me for it — they’ll judge me for it.
My social life pretty much fails to exist.
And besides work, I’m usually too tired to be worried about anything that lacks substance.
I don’t think it’s too bad of a choice, as long as I’m content with it; which I am.
It’s helped me function in a life that I didn’t think I’d make it.
I’ll be 26 in a few weeks and I found my old diary,
…it read “I’ll be lucky if I make it past 20.”
Dear old friend — we made it past 20.
and had I ended my life back when I first got diagnosed, I wouldn’t be here with all that I’ve accomplished and a sense of courage that I didn’t have back then.
Depression was never a curse, it was a blessing — a superpower I just hadn’t mastered yet.
Well doc, I guess I am running — Running as fast as I can because I don’t want my depression to catch me and hold me down ever again.
