Depression: Tired

I don’t feel (have the energy) to really write right now.  I’m tired.  That grogginess of foggy sleep-brain.  Today I tried and failed to wake up “earlier,” was up for a little bit, then fell into a nap/sleep/depression coma thing mid-day.  still exhausted.  and all I kept thinking, kept repeating to myself, was that I didn’t want to sleep, but all I wanted to do was sleep.  Even with some time and some money, I couldn’t think of a thing I wanted to do.  that’s part of depression too I suppose – in terms of anhedonia, no motivation, no ambition, etc. etc. … anyways, that’s about it.  I think I’ll showcase some others’ points of view.

The song that seems relevant at the moment is John Doe’s “Field of Dirt,” which I can’t find a postable recording of (I do own the CDs…), but a sample is here.

a couple quotes I like:

I heard this from Joy Ladin, a transgendered person, on NPR the other day:

“And I think that one of the blessings and burdens of being trans is that I think all human beings actually are ratios of being and becoming, and that for most of us after childhood, we think of ourselves as mostly being with some becoming. And when becoming takes over, becomes a greater proportion, we think of that as a crisis. It’s a midlife crisis with some kind of religious conversion. Then we’ll settle down again, and we’ll have lives that coalesce.

But I think, for trans people, I think that, for me, and I think for many of us, becoming is always going to be a greater proportion than being. I’ll never have enough experience of life as myself, to have that settled, fixed sense.

I do have some things that are much more settled than they were, but I think I’m always going to have this sense of being as something that constantly involves becoming. And I think that that’s really the glory of the human race. I don’t think anybody should write us off. We’re not done yet.”
-Joy Ladin
http://onbeing.org/programs/joy-ladin-transgender-amid-orthodoxy-i-am-who-i-will-be/

My paraphrasing/take-away from that..that you feel better when you are “being,” – when you know who you are – as opposed to when you are “becoming,” the more than uncomfortable feeling, the ennui and so on, that you don’t like who you are, you don’t feel you are who you actually are, or, maybe worse, you know who you actually are but want to be someone else, or some other version of you… waiting to “become”

… whether it’s a teenager waiting to stretch their freedom and find their own identity from their parents, or an adult in quarter or mid-life crisis, realizing you have some job you hate, some life you hate, that you are just going through the motions, that you’re dreams are gone, that you’re not where you wanted to be and don’t want to be stuck here…or some adult moved back in with their folks, stuck in some arrested development new-teenager-dom phase…somehow combines teenagerdom and mid-life crisis together, where you can’t be who you are and/or are waiting to become someone else, or….

and, then, moreover, that some trans people, at least from Joy’s point of view, are always in a state of becoming, which could both be unsettling, but also perhaps a sign of strength and/or another philosophical viewpoint that could be useful to learn from.

 

other quotes:

or there’s this:

 

All images are linked to the respective blog posts I found them from, and then some related blogs from others’ personal experiences:

“Depression Settles at the Bottom”, Opinionated Man

“Depression is a Drag,” Bipolar for Life

“A mouthful of words…,” by HBHATNAGAR, (wordpress.com)

and some art:

 

and for ending on a more positive note, depressive humor: