More on depression.

I've written about this before, but I didn't include some things because the post was too freakin' long as it was. Here, then, are some more thoughts on something that generates a lot of thinking. This is how I usually try to explain this particular item on the Variety Plate:

Depression is rather like a mucky swamp. You don't even always notice what you're walking into, until you're up to your boobs in the mire. Then, you look around, and it stinks and is dirty, and you're in the middle of all the greyness and being crushed by the ooze, which makes it bloody hard to make out where to go to get out of there.

So what's a gal to do?

It's easiest, from the perspective of the one lost in all of it, to just give in and sink. But...easiest isn't best, from the perspective of everyone who loves you and wants you, muck and all, in their lives. People who love you, really love you, don't mind a bit of mud on the carpet when you've had to come such a long way to see them. Even when the long way is a typewritten sorrowful cry of frustration and pain.

Life is full of people who love you. And full of clean, fresh water. And people who've had to make their way out of the same mess you're mired in now.

The thing is...yeah, it's easier to give in and sink, when you don't see a way out...but...if you're willing, you can work out of it. Of course, I only know the hard way out - pick a direction and keep walking until you're out of it. I can't trust medication, myself, because it tends to kill what I value most in me, my creativity, so I just have to slog through it until it's done. Sometimes it's done quickly, in a day or two - and sometimes it takes a year or more. I promise you this - you get back onto firm ground eventually. It does end. Really. I only hope that for most folks the path is a shorter and easier one, that they've come through the worst of it and are on their way to clearer days.

It does end. You just pick a direction and keep slogging, and the swamp ends. It just...takes a little longer, sometimes. And sometimes, people decide it isn't worth it and they build stilt houses and settle on in...but no one should have to hunker down in that misery if they don't want. Who wants to be sucked dry by someone else's emotional mosquitos??

And something I've said before, when someone mentions that they aren't medicating, or are medicating, or are being questioned by others about how they are treating their depression:

Doubting your choices and lifestyle are only normal. Living with them takes courage and perseverance. Please, though, don't let sorrow dictate how, or who, you are, or what you do with yourself or you life. It is, after all, your life to live.