On Letters to Myself II
Hi, K.
How are you? Today is a good mental health day for you even if it's a Monday. That's rare. Does that mean your meds are working? You hope so. It has been a terrible July and August.
You keep thinking about that Hyperbole and a Half comic about depression. You want everybody to read the web comic because frankly, it's the best description of what depression is. It's not a bad case of sadness (though it can be), it's about that certain emptiness about things in life that once give you joy.
You used to read. A lot. You used to watch movies. A lot. You used to play games in the computer. Also, by a lot. But now... whenever you try to read books, watch movies, or play computer games, you get bored. It became a chore. All you want to do is to lie down and not even think about anything. You just want to watch the ceiling and wait for the day to be over.
You like the night. If you're at home, and you have locked the door, there are little chance of enemies. What enemies? You don't know. You tried to explain to your psychiatrist that you have a bad case of paranoia of being persecuted about things that you have done in the past. What did you do in the past that scares you? You don't know either. But you are unnaturally and unreasonably afraid of mistakes, thinking that will come back and haunt you.
You don't know, you don't know, you don't know.
Am I explaining myself well? Welp, that's the problem with depression. You just can't point at a missing limb and tell your doctor, "Well, that's my problem there, doc, my arm got cut off." With an invisible ghost like mental health illnesses, the most that doctors can help you is how you describe or show yourself to the public. If you're down, you have to explain how down you are. If you're schizophrenic, you have to describe that in detail. I don't know if there are any test out there that can calculate how much imbalanced the happy chemicals in your brain is. That would be great. "Looks like you have a low dose of serotonin, K. No worries, just consume this particular combination of medicine and you'll be right as rain." But it's not as easy as that, isn't it?
Anyway, as I said, you like the night. There are no enemies and you can think better - well, as better as you can muster. The dark thoughts are still there, but a bit more silent. You still can't read, can't watch movies, can't play computer games, but at least there's a certain joy within you watching paint dry. It is more meditative than being an empty shell, in a sense.
You hope your meds are working. You have to think they do, K. Don't underestimate the power of positive belief. I know, I know, you're thinking, "Did you just say that I should just think POSITIVE? Don't you know I already tried that?" I know, but my advice is more into the power of positive belief in science to right you up. You don't have to be alone in this path. There's your doctor, your friends, your wife, your family. You have to trust that things will get better. And they usually do.
Yours, K.
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