Simple words. I keep telling myself it can be simplified. If
I could just distract myself. Do something else. Usually I treated a session of
depression at this level with some drinking and giggling at life. That is not
an option. Dancing? A path that is broken. Writing. For days I have wanted to writogg about
thoughts in my cracked brain. Teaching. Activism. Careers. Dating. Judaism.
How am I ever going to get into the Jewish dating scene if I
have no career, nothing to offer, am still not "Jewish enough" for
some folks and haven't done anything Tikkun Olam-ish in a long while?
Brains are not simple. Depression. Also not simple.
Lost in Translation. I am lost in
translation.
I have to re-write a positive outlook in the time frame of a
near death/ life changing event. In the space of a New Naomi who is a critter
put under an evolutionary pressure that no one expected or can replicate. And
everyone is struggling to understand.
Old Naomi treated depression by burring it. New Naomi
wants to think it into submission.
Old Naomi struggled with depression, battled it,
perpetually lost, and began to allow herself to retreat when depression came a-calling
for a game of emotional fisticuffs. And this was after years of permitting
depression to sucker punch Old Naomi into a very sad, lonely, frightened,
loveless life. Worked into the corner. I was never surprised at the decision.
Retaliation was not an option. Retreat. Retreat. Fall back. Fall back. It was, frankly,
the closest thing to safety that I had.
New creature Naomi. She is brave. Far from gutless. And
making a mess of the old ways. I simply do not know what to do. When I try
distract myself I am drawn back into a fight that I do not want to face. But my
new self is angrier. Punchier.
When I do research on depression all the artistic
impression and colloquial images are... ugly. And I get it. Depression is ugly.
But the person who has depression. Suffers from it. That person is not ugly.
That person is beautiful. That person is being manipulated by an ugly thing.
And that person isn't always curled up, defenseless, crying,
in black and blue tone, with broken fists wedged into the cavities of terrified
eye sockets, spine sagging and shoulder shattered.
We, the depressed, are fucking
warriors. Our fights are internal, whatever, but we are still fighters.
And, my darlin', it is a braver thing
to do. To deal with this. Fight the enemy that lives inside your skull.
Please don't feed me those handpicked lines,
sociologically prepared by parents, friends, strangers and "doctors."
The lines do not steady my battlements. Recycled re-enforcements do not apply
to the all, do not apply to the every situation. I'm sorry, darlin', they make it worse. So.
Much. Worse. I know you didn't mean to make it as such. But at the time, it
makes it feel as if you have joined forces with the enemy.
I need. We need. Something new.
If you want to see us through,
cultivate a new line each time. And learn to roll with the punches because that
is what we do here.
Or, at least, I think that is what I am
learning to do here. Now.
New Naomi is punch drunk.
So it goes.
No comments:
Post a Comment