My Black Dog Weekend is Over

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I remember me at six years old completely overwhelmed by sadness and feeling totally alone. I sat on the playground unmoved for all of recess despite my friend’s effort to rouse me into playing. This shadow, this dark overpowering sadness, this depression ebb and flows through my life. It’s always present, sometimes very far away and small, sometimes huge, big, and right on top of me, but always there.

A couple of years ago, while furiously working in my garden, feeling dark and sad, I got mad. I said something like, “fine, I will just be depressed for the rest of my life.” Suddenly, I felt better. I actually laughed out loud.  I finally accepted that this depression was just part of my life and would likely always be with me. Since then the depression has stayed mostly quiet and even on bad days it did not shut me down.

This past weekend it crushed me. I could not eat or enjoy anything, and weariness overwhelmed me. The weariness of depression is not like physical tiredness. It’s more like a desire to just escape from everything. I often think of it as temporary death. Like suicide, but not permanent. In the afternoon, I slept for almost two hours. Even though I became mostly functional again, it took till the following afternoon to finally get out of the shadow.

A bad weekend is ok. Today I look forward to a week of creation.  

If you want to understand depression better, check out this video from WHO. The black dog analogy is a good one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiCrniLQGYc

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