So.
I use this blog as therapy. While I'd like to say it's for all of you, it's for me.
I suffer from clinical depression, as most of you know. I'm in a pretty terrible place right now, which is hard for me to admit, but it's just the honest truth. I feel like a lot of bad things happened around me all at once and I have developed absolutely no coping mechanisms. I recognize how stupid it is; I have so many things in this world, and I'm incredibly grateful. But depression, as I've mentioned before, is a nasty, vicious bitch.
When I go through a bad bout of depression, I liken myself to the title character in "Bartleby the Scrivener" (Herman Melville, 1853). For those of you unfamiliar with this particular short story, it details the account of a Wall Street lawyer's interactions with his copyist Bartleby, who slowly detaches from all responsibility (even to his own well-being), dismissing it with the phrase, "I would prefer not to." He goes so far as to become a vagrant, is put in prison, and eventually dies of starvation after "preferring" not to eat. I remember reading it in high school. I've never particularly cared for Melville, as I've always found him ridiculously long-winded, but this story struck me as relevant to my life. I, too, become detached and listless in these situations, and I'd just as well "prefer not to" exist.
This is my lowest point in a long time. I barely moved today. I slept more than I thought I was capable of sleeping. I watched a silent movie. I cried a lot.
I tend to cry a lot. I'm a crier. It's a pretty typical thing that I do.
I feel nothing but remorse and regret for the way I've been acting lately, because I've been nothing but clingy and needy to pretty much everyone in my life. It makes me sick to my stomach. The wonderful people in my life deserve so much more than that.
My only usual place for human interaction is temporarily gone. Jacob has insisted that I take a Facebook hiatus. So, now I'm just alone.
Jacob and I had the discussion last night that maybe we should just work on me for a little bit, and take the focus off of having babies. If we want to raise those babies right, I have to be okay. Which, once again, I find it incredibly frustrating that it's only me that's standing in the way of the only thing I truly want: children.
I have to give Jacob a lot of credit. He's wonderful at recognizing when I need help. Unfortunately, he's about as nurturing as a lump of coal. I can sense his good intentions, but I lack the emotional comfort, and that's very difficult to come by. Jacob is the only one who has that responsibility toward me, plus, I can't deny that his love for me is tremendous. It is truly dynamic.
Despite all his faults, very few men would stick with a woman as batshit crazy as me and still maintain the same love for her that he's always had. Dammit, he's wonderful.
If I wasn't so horribly crushed by my own brain, I'd love to blog about all the fun I had at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival this year and how I'm almost ready to start substitute teaching in the Austin Public School District. But, unfortunately, that'll just have to wait for a time when I'm in better spirits.
Maybe tomorrow?
