I hate myself right now. 

I hate myself every time I’m depressed.  I just started a new medication after gaining 9 pounds in a month on the previous med I tried, so I’m depressed about that on top of having general depression.  Since I’m starting over again on a new medication, I have to wait out the 4-6 weeks it can take for the medication’s full effect.  At least I’m able to get some thoughts down today.  All I’ve wanted to is sit around or lie around and exist.  I don’t even want to exist.  I don’t want to die, either, if that makes sense. 

I just can’t do anything when I’m depressed.  I can’t think straight.  Every thought is negative, and it snowballs into ten negative thoughts, and that takes me on a never-ending downward spiral.  It’s hard to get myself up and out of that.  It doesn’t really happen until the depression subsides…for the time being.  It will come back.  It always comes back.  I have to be realistic about this.  I can be hopeful, but realistic.  Right now I have no hope.  Nothing to look forward to.  There is no future in depression. That might not make sense to people who haven’t experienced it, but to people who have…you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Because of the intense pain and anguish that overtakes my mind and body, at this point I can only focus on the smallest things to soothe me.  Depression makes me cry a lot, which really is therapeutic for me.  I listen to music.  Andy rubs my back.  Sometimes I can watch a movie.  Sometimes I don’t want music or movies or any stimulation at all.  Nothing is fun right now.  I have been reading the Bible.  This is uncharacteristic of me…but it’s been helping.  I’ve been praying.

It’s times like these, and I cry whenever I think about it, that I feel like such a burden to everyone – to my husband, my kids, my parents…I hate that they care about me so much and I continually put them through this.  This is why I hate myself.  I feel guilty.  I overthink, and stew, and ruminate obsessively over every bad decision I’ve ever made.  I wonder why I can’t be better…why I can’t be different.  I think I’d be helping people if I weren’t here.

I call close friends when I really need to talk, even though I also feel like a burden to them.  But human contact does help me, because they use logic to break down these negative thoughts I’m having and point out how skewed mine are.  Maybe they are.  Right now it’s all I can think about.

Whenever I’m like this, just to hold on, I think about what I’d tell a friend in my situation.  I’d tell her not to give up, that it will get better, that it always gets better even though right now that thought is inconceivable.  I’d tell her to stop beating herself up.  I’d tell her that I know everything is hard – right now everything is so hard…but just try to complete small, manageable tasks throughout the day.  Nothing too big so that you set yourself up for failure, but maybe see if you can manage a walk around the block.  Take a bath.  Something small that might help.  But I know right now nothing seems to help.  

Taking my situation and making it third person helps me see that I am not my thoughts.  My thoughts are distorted right now because of the depression, but it will get better.  I try to think of times that it was better and focus on that, even if right now it feels like it will never be that way again.  It will be.

It will get better.