What I see: on a bad day, getting out of bed, getting dressed, going to work., these are major victorys!
What the rest of the world sees: I’m late, I’m lazy, I’m irresponsible. I think the rules don’t apply to me.
Every minute past the deadline hour that I don’t get out of bed, I am perfectly aware of how much worse my situation is getting. Now I’m anxious on top of depressed. The anxiety increases in some strange algorithm the longer it gets. I start thinking of lies I can tell to excuse my lateness or at least explain it away, without having to say “I couldn’t get out of bed”. Or really, I couldn’t stop getting back into bed. I got up several times… bathroom, take the dogs out, get some water. Each time, my brain says “get in the shower, get dressed!” and each time, my emotional self says no, and crawls back under the covers.
In the end today, I got up 1/2 hour past the time I should have been at work, so I got there 1 hour late. I didn’t tell any inane lies about it, just apologized and said I was having some problems this morning. I didn’t offer details and for once wasn’t asked for any.
I really wish I could just “wish” this stuff away, just decide to be happy, and be motivated. The real world doesn’t work like that though, at least not for me. A quote making the rounds on facebook “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be” by Abraham Lincoln. That sounds really good. Seems profound, seems …. “doable”. Doesn’t seem to take into account chemical depression. I’m not unhappy. I probably have an enviable life in many ways. I’m just depressed in a way that doesn’t take happiness or lack thereof into account. We need another word for this. Maybe there is one. It’s almost closer to inertia really.
Taking it One Day At A Time, even if the rest of the world expects more.
Silently Surviving 