Naps

Several days a week I take an afternoon nap. Sometime between about 1 and 3 pm I lie down on my really comfy futon pillow couch, which is just long enough to stretch out with my head on the pillow, and take a naps for anywhere from 10-15 minutes to 30 minutes or more and occasionally most of an hour.

What's curious though is that I don't think of death when I lie down, I always think of just taking a nap, sleeping to relax. But when I come out of the nap a thought often pervades my mind. Death. I think what if when I fell asleep during the nap I never woke up.

I think that I would never know what happened. Everything I was, everything I knew, everything I experienced would just be gone from life, from this world, and no one would ever know, but just my body lying on the couch.

I think that waking up is sometimes the best thing I do that day. Death didn't take me during my nap. But who knows when someday I'll lie down to take a nap and it will be the last thing I do.

Falling Until I Stop

When my Dysthymia worsens into depression I describe it as falling into a deep (dry) well where I just keep falling bouncing off the sides, struggling to find a place to grab or put my foot, but always just falling. Falling until I stop.

And when I stop I sit down and become silent, taking the darkness, the mental and emotional emptiness of the space and time, noting that looking up is still only darkness, no light, even in the farthest distance above me.

And there I sit, mentally, for days, often weeks, on end, sometimes months and occasionally a year or more, just treading life to get by, disguising it at work, with family and friends, and struggling with myself to find a way up and out.

And there I sit, in the quiet darkness, not feeling, not thinking, not anything but striving for emptiness, for all my feelings and thoughts are disasterous and dangerous. Alone in the darkness, the light from the opening in the well abov me long vanquished by the darkness.

All I have are my thoughts and feelings to survive in life and struggle to find an answer. Eventually I find the mental energy to do small things and slowly reclaim the everyday things of my life, and then eventually the bigger things.

I climb out of the well into the light, into life itself. But I'm never far from the well and never safe from falling again until I stop. It's alway a reality pushing against any mental thoughts or feelings for the good because there is comfort in the bottom of the well.

In the darkness I often find better insight into what I want to do, how I really feel about life and what I think of myself. Sometimes there is a clarity in the darkness you don't find elsewhere when and where the mind is free to roam into place the light and life won't let it.

So it's often a fight to find comfort whether in the light or darkness. It just depends which is better, struggling with life, falling into the well or sitting in the darkness. Which is better when and where I am.

Things of Late

I've written about walking with a pinched Sciatic nerve which seems to be slowly and incrementally healing albeit with short periods of being moderately worse from too much work or exercise, mostly lifting or going up and down stair a lot (I live on the 3rd floor).

Anyway, I noticed that after increasing the distance to 8 miles my Dysthymia got worse because I'm physically tired more after walking and struggle to do much for the rest of the day. I'm not entirely sure the two are related but it's not just a coincidence.

I haven't figured out if knowing you're mild to moderately depressed, meaning knowing the signs and seeing them in how you think and feel and what you do or do not do, qualifies that you're depressed as any professional would prescribe therapy or drugs.

I've always worked through these periods and while some last more than a few weeks, some even a few months or longer, I expect I'll come around as there are short periods during some days I feel ok and even briefly good.

Anyway, that's the news, good or bad as it is. I won't stop walking as it's my only choice to get better physically. I've achieved my initial goal of walking 2 hours, which now is just over that since I walk at a 15-16 minute per mile pace, so I've leveled off the distance until the body catches up to find this distance is too easy, which it's not most days.

For now, mentally I'm just treading water and getting through life until it comes around. I'm taking occasional days off from walking for errands and life which helps, so I'm slowly getting better while living with the mental rollercoaster.

Sometime life is like that and the best we can do is hang on.

Don't Mistake

Not all depression is mental problem or issue, but many times there is a physical basis for the appearance of depression, some in the body, some in the brain, and mostly a combination of the two as the body makes a person physically tired which in turns makes them mentally tired.

My point? Don't mistake depression as a mental problem or issue with the person. They could be sick, ill, tired, etc., or simply reacting to their environment, pressure from work, overwhelmed with the world demanding their attention, decisions and actions.

If you get to ask questions, ask about their life, their health, their fitness, etc. and all the problems in the life. Just let them talk and only ask questions to understand more about the problems they have. Let them talk about their life which is often where everything starts.

Depression is a reaction, a response to the world around them, and if they're not physically well for a variety of reasons, then they will be depressed, so address those issues and problems if they ask and want your help.

Otherwise, don't think they're depressed because they mentally sick and try to treat them yourself. That's the last thing they need or want, to be labelled and called mentally sick. Leave it out of the discussion unless they ask you.

How are you doing

"How are you doing."

"I'm ok. Why do you ask?"

"You don't look ok."

"I've never looked ok, but it doesn't change how I feel."

"Yeah, but you don't even look ok for you."

"Ok is relative anymore."

"Anymore? Since when?"

"Since I was born. Looks are deceiving."

"Now you tell me. So you're always ok no matter how you look?"

"No, it depends on how I feel."

"And how would I know by looking at you?"

"You can't, that's why you ask me."

"Oh. Ok. So, how are you doing?"

"I'm ok. Why do you ask?"