Delayed Reaction

So. My Dark Day happened about a month ago now. And usually that's the beginning of the depressive episodes, the social anxiety, the mild paranoia that everyone really just thinks I'm a big fat failure but they somehow passive aggressively won't tell me because they want to see me fail more (yeah, because that one's logical).

But that's not what happened this year. This year has brought a lot of great things in the latter half of the year - finishing grad school. Passing my RD exam. Getting a job. Making a great set of new friends. Dating some really great guys - and learning how to break it off with them and still remain friends because we just didn't work romantically. All really fabulous uppers. It's almost like I should have known it wouldn't last.

In a way I kinda have. I've had a pit in my stomach - this nervous feeling - for over a week now. I've been more consciously fighting the paranoia (successfully thus far, but still, I've been aware of it). I've been making myself be social even when I felt like I might be a little socially anxious - because it's good for me to get out.

And now it seems like it's all for nothing. Because here it is - my first big depressive episode of the winter. (drums roll, trumpets sound, cymbals crash, and choirs sing "Duh" in 5-part harmony) Talk about a delayed reaction to my Dark Day...

I was supposed to go out dancing tonight. I love the Wednesday night dance. It's at a bar - it's relaxing and has a really chill atmosphere. I love the people who go on Wednesdays. I love the music we choose to play. But all I wanted to do was sit and binge-watch The West Wing on Netflix and drink Cranberry Ginger Ale and eat PB&J for dinner. And I suppose one could make the argument that sometimes you just need a night in. Sure. But that's not what this is and we all know it. Despite my rationalizations otherwise, despite my logicking, despite my concessions to myself. This is depression. That gnawing sense of ennui, mixed with random anxieties, mixed with a sense of disarray, mixed with that horrible feeling of apathy. This is depression my friends. This. Is. Depression.

I wrote recently about playing the Blame Game with the Depression Entity. And one could make that argument that I'm blaming my failed social engagement plans on said Entity. But that's not what this post is. This post is part confession, part realization that the inevitable is not out-runnable (all efforts on my part notwithstanding), and part admission that no one or no Thing is to blame. It just is. Tonight I lost a battle. Not with the Entity. With myself. Not a battle in the sense of bombs and fighter plans or cannons and swordfights. But a battle of wills. And the depressed part of my brain triumphed tonight. It was just so much easier to sit on my comfy beanbag in my comfy clothes and not do things. So that's what I did.

Any number of counselors/social workers/ psychologists would tell me that I should be kinder to myself. That I should allow myself to have a day off. That I should forgive myself for succumbing to the easy hermetic attitude that accompanies any of my depressive episodes. And sure, I'll work very hard to forgive myself - because they're right in that sense. But are they right that I should allow this day off of myself when my intention was never just to take a day off but to consciously take no actions whatsoever, and thereby allowing a decision to be made without making it - namely, it became too late for me to get ready and out the door and to the thing tonight? Because it seems to me like "allowing myself" is code for "enabling myself" to give in to the pull of apathy.

What's the point of all of this? It's simple:

Depression doesn't wait for a convenient moment. Episodes pop up like pimples on a 16-year-old's face. And they are, most importantly, unexpected.