From a conversation with Ted:

…if I drilled a hole into your brain and poured in some serotonin and oxytocin that everything you’re describing would shift brighter.

This is my approach:

  1. Are you at risk of suicide or has it simply lasted too long where it is wearing you down to the point where life isn’t worth it? If so, adjust medication?
  2. or (and this is where I live) if this is one a series of minI fogs that come and go every couple of weeks, acknowledge the fuck out of it and stick to the coffee, masturbation, and exercise plan?

So my question:  do you ever feel light and airy?

Because I personally have probably an hour or two a day where I think I’m not going to make it. And the rest is fine.  So it becomes a Buddhist exercise:  you have to observe the bad parts from a third party perspective.

But I think your stuff may be more systemic.

My Saturday response:

No, I don’t ever feel light and airy.  I have moments when I smile – tickling Auden at the restaurant today, watching Eliot play clarinet, sprinting, sunsets or moonrises, music can make me bounce a bit – but that’s maybe once a day if I’m lucky.  This week was manageable, but I think it’s because since Tom’s death, I have retreated to a safer survival state with my head pulled in like a tortoise.

I think that’s the bit about the view from depression – on the one hand, it has made me see things that I was patently ignoring before and letting slide and get worse; on the other hand, it tinges things so thoroughly black sometimes that I wonder if it’s worth fixing.

Actually that’s it.  I have to accept that while depression is telling me to look at something that is wrong, it won’t tell me that it is worth fixing.  dDpression will just advise I should chuck it all away.  I have to find enough motivation to examine the problem to determine if there is a solution.  It’s like using an exhausted, apathetic, completely sated bloodhound to sniff out some prey.  The bloodhound has the scent, but it’s just looking in the direction of the hunt and then back at you as if to say, ‘really?  it’s over there, why can’t you just get it yourself.  I’d prefer a nap.’

Now, about your questions – is it so bad that I need to adjust my medication or is this just something I have to get zen about dealing with everyday?

Suicide is always a background dirge – but it’s not offered as a solution that holds much appeal.  It’s not unlike that article that compared it to jumping from a burning building. I’m standing at the window – jumping does not entice.  But whether I can wait it out long enough for the firefighters to clear the smoke/fire is the question.

Ted’s Sunday morning question:

Another question:    Where does this state play out (let’s say 10 years) with you in a simulation:

  1. do you resign to this feeling forever
  2. do you actually go through with suicide
  3. or do you eventually look up and say fuck it in leaving and then become a longshoreman or something

My Sunday response:

To answer your question – I run scenarios of the future, and they all seem so black and white and subsequently so bleak.  Either

  1. I stay and just keep getting more miserable and end up screwing up work, withdrawing from everyone and eventually impacting the boys’ perceptions of the world  or
  2. I end up leaving either by departure or by suicide with the same results.

I know there has to be some alternative, and I get moments were I get pumped about writing or thinking about graduate school or something else, but then that crumbles pretty quickly because honestly, my job is the least of my problems.  Solving that minimally makes things better but not long term enough to truly help.

Ted:

Here is what I think is interesting:
I don’t hear you mentioning exhaustion as one of the roadblocks to change. Is this accurate?  When I am depressed it is the extra powerful gravitational force that renders me unable help myself.   If you aren’t exhausted I think we have a tool.

Even if you are exhausted, we will find something.  Depression sits next to me all day everyday.   Just hasn’t gotten too close in a while.

Robin:

Exhaustion is a funny thing.  I am indeed exhausted:  bone tired.  I want to nap all of the time.  But, parenthood changes your relationship with exhaustion and sleep deprivation.  Before kids, fatigue sits on you like Jabba the Hut.  You squash under the weight of it.  Motivation, activity, everything sucked from you.  After kids, fatigue still paralyzes, but you have no option to succumb because you have children climbing all over you pulling at you to do things.  So, you climb into your wheelchair and set about doing things no matter now enervated you are.

Still, I thank you for seeing this as a challenge we face together.   I cannot tell you how less alone that makes me feel.