weiter weiter ins Gelassenheit

I've been home a couple hours from the gym, and just now have I taken a shower.  It's not that I don't want to be clean-- in fact, like most people, I want the stink and filth of work and exercise off me immediately.

But it's just such a chore.  Undress.  Turn on the water.  Adjust it.  Step in.  Even then, you can't just stand there; you have to get the shampoo in your hair, and soap on the loofah, and rinse the whole mess off.  Don't get me started about toweling afterward.

Even now, I got my unders up to my knees and gave up, sitting bare-assed on the edge of the sofa.

And this is it.  This is the undeniable evidence.  A wave of depression has settled in.  There's no telling how long it will be around, and there isn't much I can do about it, but wait it out.

I've put quite a bit of time and effort into learning about myself, as a patient of mental illness, and simply as a person.  It does not define me exactly, but is a large part of my overall state of being.  I've been trained to look for signs; I'm ever-vigilant of triggers and stressors, all in an elaborate attempt to pre-empt some of the worst possibilities.  I think I do a pretty good job of it.

But if you have arthritis, you have arthritis; you can stretch and exercise and take your anti-inflammatories and joint-essential nutrients, but you still have it, and sometimes it's just going to hurt anyway.  I go through cycles of hypomania and mild-to-moderate depression with some frequency.  I have mood swings.  I have very sudden and very severe flashes of violent rage (which, fortunately, are usually very short-lived).

But sometimes, perhaps twice a year or so, I get depressed in a bad way.  In a draining, aching way.  I'm so tired, but I can't sleep.  I'm so lonely, but I don't want to be around anyone.  I get hungry, but don't really want to eat.

I just want to be sated; I don't want to have to eat.
I just want to be clean; I don't want to have to bathe.
I just want to be rested; I don't want to have to devote hours to sleep.

It's all such a chore.  So difficult.  You'd think I was being asked to count leaves in a rainstorm.

I don't, however, feel hopeless.  Well, sometimes I do, but it's not a lingering feeling.  There are two reasons for this: for one, I don't have the same need for a sense of "purpose" as I have seen many people have.  I'm grateful for this freedom.  As far as I'm concerned, my only purpose in life is to exist, and I do that, so that's pretty much settled.  Even when I feel really, truly horrible about myself, I am still pretty sure that that's my only for-certain job.  I don't put a lot of stock in the future (which is part of why I have trouble with planning...), and that frees up a lot of my worry (which is good, because I have so much worry in the present-moment all the time, I don't really have any to spare on silly things like an uncertain future).

The other is simply that I know this thing passes.  I have "battled" (read: endured) depression several times before.  It's just a waiting game.  I hate that I lose so much time to it, but I accept that, so it's not so bad.

I went to work this morning, and I kept my training appointment at the gym, and I took a shower, and eventually I'll finish putting my underwear on.  And you know?  For one day, that's enough.  I've done enough.

I might be able to do more tomorrow; I might not; no matter what, it will be enough, because I will have done my best in that moment, whatever my best may be.