24 Is Not Enough

The thing I find most inconvenient about depression, and which must be common to most handicaps, is that everything takes longer. Getting up in the morning, washing the bathroom, writing letters, paying bills, the time that it takes to do these things includes the time it takes to screw up my courage to do them.

I know, I sound like I'm whining. I'm really not. I'm commenting on one of the truths of my life. Depression manifests itself in different ways. For me, I become afraid of movement. I've sat on my couch for an hour, wanting to get up for a glass of water, but feeling that the immediate space in which I sat was a bubble of safety, and that it would burst if I moved, that the real world would rush in and drown me if the bubble burst. Cleaning things is so much worse than just getting something to drink, or even making dinner. Making choices about where this item and that item need to go is terrifying. My bedroom is difficult, but my office is almost impossible. I've learned that if I push myself past a certain point, I pay for it. I remember too many times sitting on my study floor, weeping and frozen, holding some completely unimportant item, unable to decide what to do with it. Eventually, I assume the aspect of a dull automaton, and finish the job. It's in that state that I most often throw out things that I regret later. I tend to do spurts of work and spend long intermissions playing cards on my computer or reading or watching my fish. The intermissions prevent the freezing, but it sure makes things take longer. I'm trying to teach myself not to feel guilty about taking long breaks because feeling guilty adds to the anxiety which reduces my total capability.

This is part of what it means to have a mood disorder.