Wednesday, June 29, 2016

In all honesty

Recently realized that the biggest reason I stopped writing was because I lost all the honesty I used to be able to express. Most of the articles I write, I end up rewriting, truncating and basically wiping away all evidence of the thought stream that evoked it.

I guess there comes a time in your life when you have to re-evaluate who you are and who you associate with. It was also a realization that everything I write or say will be used against me when it's convenient, which is, to say the least, scary.

Over the past few months I have been going through the entries/posts that I'd written over the last 10 years which cover the period before I was depressed to immediately after it was 'cured'. I used to be poetic and expressive with my words, both verbal and written; back then I still had the naivety and belief in the goodness of people.

As reality sank in I started getting angry and the entries alternated between sadness, anger and a need to understand what was happening to me. At first the depression crept in small waves that were often confused with bipolar disorder and about a year into it, it was more cloudy than sunny...clinical depression.

I have tried about a thousand different ways to write about life after depression but kept getting stuck halfway with all it entries. It drove me crazy having to abandon each article until I asked myself, what was I trying to say? What point were they intended to send across? That I'm no longer classified as bipolar or how my life has become all rosy and everything is making sense?

Yes I am glad I don't have to take the pills ever again because a) there is(was) no physiological or psychological need to after the misdiagnosis was sorted out and depression treated correctly, and b) they used to slow down and fuzzy up my thoughts and I was more a biologically functioning vegetable than a human capable of a spectrum of emotions and thoughts.

The vacuum remaining after the disease left was filled with trust issues and paranoia about everything especially people's intentions. No, it's not exactly trust issues, it is questioning of peoples intentions at every corner, why did they ask that question? Why was it phrased that way?

Was I compensating for self esteem that was so fragile and suppressed during the depressive period that when someone looked your way then you were only too glad to indulge and entertain their bullshit, especially with relationships; and ended up turning the other cheek or blind eye(whichever is the more appropriate expression) more rather than focus on getting what was right and deserved?

I am potentially the worst poster child for people who have gotten over depression. I am happy, but not as happy as I could be if I allowed myself. I have friends but not as friendly as I should be towards them. I have loves but I'm not as expressive or communicative as I should be. I was happier in the first year because ignorance is bliss and what better to enforce that than a broken memory (although that fixed itself completely later).

Most importantly I was am happy my world wasn't isn't obfuscated anymore, not the nonexistence of crisis, but the confidence that I can walk through a crisis without breaking pace, shrinking from it, or losing the ability to think through it.

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