Thievery

I am fully convinced now that Depression steals from people. I have had whole parts of my identity stolen from me. That's not to say I can't get them back. But it is trying to take things from me. It is greedy, and it grabs at things, and holds onto them tight, and hopes that I will forget I once owned those things.

Like what? For one, my interests. I like to cook. But it has been so long since I've truly been able to remember the pleasurable parts of cooking that I have lost a lot of my cooking skills. People who I would characterize as good friends, and people who hardly know me, all think that I don't know how to cook, and that I don't really enjoy it. It surprises me and irritates me when I discover this attitude and belief in people. It is frustrating when my friends give me the same look my mom used to give me when I said I wanted to sew a quilt (she's seen me with a sewing machine--straight lines are harder than you think!) when I say I like cooking. I do like to cook. But even now, as the meds are returning me to a place of balance where I have interest in DOING things again, I struggle to make that true again. Because I've forgotten how somehow. And I can't think what to do. I have vague intentions of doing it again, and more often. But I feel deeply rooted in the rut in which I have entrenched myself.

It also has stolen my happiness. And I don't just mean the ability to feel it from day to day. I mean, while I've been so deeply immersed in a dark and dreary existence, I missed LIFE. I didn't choose things that maybe would have put me in better places. I seem to have lost some of the bonds with friends and loved ones that kept us bound to each others' daily lives. I'm alone. Other people around me seem to have managed to end up happy and WITH people, and DOING things. I do things, but alone.

I can't quite fully articulate what depression has stolen. People who have never felt it will often say, or privately think, that we are responsible for the loss we experience when we allow things to happen TO us. I don't dispute that. I have let a lot of things happen to me. I have been in those deep dark places where I don't care, because of a crazy chemical imbalance. It is all my fault my life is not different. And at the same time, it is NOT my fault. I have control over where I am, but I don't have control. I feel both ways. In my healthy moments, I can see what I should have done. But in those unhealthy moments, I didn't see it. 

So many times, from so many people, I've heard the viewpoint expressed that the dark ugly points in our lives make our lives richer, and deeper, and more the person we are meant to be. And on my sunny days, I agree with this concept, and sometimes even embrace it. But on my dark, desperate, miserable days, I despise this theory. I find it deplorable. What doesn't kill us might make us stronger. Or it might debilitate us and suspend us in our anguish.