Struggling.   
08:43pm 02/04/2010
  It's been said that most people who experience a major depressive episode will experience another one within five years. I thought I was going to be one of the exceptions. It's been 3 1/2 years since I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and it's been more than 2 1/2 years since I stopped taking medication. I thought I was okay. Not great, but managing. And I guess I am, in a way. I go to work, I've mostly lost the urge to cut myself, I have friends.

But I'm still struggling.

Sometimes I wonder if there will ever be a time when it's not a chore to get through the day. I've given up the idea of being truly happy, but I think I'd give anything to not be miserable. I'm not angry, I'm not even sure if I'm sad. I'm just. Tired. Every day is such an effort. Just getting out of bed is an effort most of the time, and after wearing a smile all day long, by the time I get home I'm ready to curl up in a ball and collapse. But the smile stays in place, because if it doesn't, there are questions. Questions of people who love me and worry about me and who make me feel worse than anyone else in the world. There is an impossible amount of guilt attached to this disorder...disease? Which, in my case, makes me try so hard to be okay. They want me to be okay and so I wear a mask that says I am, but every hour I wear the mask, the more difficult it is to put it on the next day. A part of me wants nothing more than to be left alone, so I can actually be myself. I can be sad if I want to, I can cry if I want to, I can sit on the floor and stare at the wall if I want to. Another part of me knows how destructive it would be for me to be alone. Too easy.

I think about moving sometimes. And other times, I wonder why I think about it. I think that the only thing that will change if I move is my location. And then I think about dying. I'm not suicidal ~ there's too much guilt in me for that ~ but I almost long for the time when it can be over. Is that giving up? I don't know. I only know that when I come home from work, more and more I don't want to talk to anyone, I don't want to do anything, I just want the quiet. Which is ironic, since the voice in my head is loudest when I'm alone. But sometimes? I just don't have it in me.

I don't tonight.

I'll have to deal with the recriminations of that tomorrow, but for tonight I think I'm going to go sit in the dark for awhile and pray for silence.		  
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nonebutgrace