The Truth About Depression

    Last night, while struggling for the umpteenth time to sleep, I wrote:

When in the midst of my lows,

I feel ready to leave the world behind,

because I don't know how else
to escape what's on my mind.

    I may not have done this as often in my writing, but I often play the Gemini card and claim that's the primary reason for my ups and downs. I don't officially have bipolar disorder and I don't believe my highs would ever count as mania so much as feeling high on life. But my downs are tricky and they last a long time because after the unexpected nose-dive into depression, there's a bit of a hang over period where I begin to judge myself for being temperamental, for getting depressive all over again. And to top it off, when I'm experiencing rock bottom, I refuse to reach out because my number one rule is to not be a burden on anyone.
    Obviously, I have failed at that on a number of occasions and wanted to be swallowed up by the earth afterward; I can't bear the thought of adding weight to someone else's load. That doesn't mean I never share my history, it just means that I try to make sure that either A: I am in a positive enough mood not to bring the person down in my sharing or B: that the person is ok with hearing my truth. However, shortly after my biological mother told me that there was a very real reason for me to have a trigger word, my desire at times, was to have someone commiserate with me. Like I said, I know I sometimes fail at upholding my own rule, and each time there was regret.
    What some people don't fully understand about mental illness is that we lose ourselves entirely in anxiety. Believe me, we WANT to snap out of it, but our logical mind is out of commission when we experience depression, leaving us high & dry since we can't remember or properly grasp & use the coping skills we may have gained. I have days where I am convinced that everyone either hates me or is, at the very least, simply putting up with me. And one time I came to the crazy conclusion that the only way for me to save my relationships was to email an apology to the group with a not so subtle undertone of self-loathing...just to make sure they knew how sorry I was for my faux pas. I have days where I think, "How can anyone love me when I'm clearly a wreck?"