Can Jeremy come out to play?
Finally out of a months long depression. I think.
If you are a regular reader or follow me on TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter, you know that I have been depressed for months. Some days I was mostly somewhat functional, but most days I was barely functioning—or not at all. I was very proud of myself for rallying to write this newsletter every week, which was no mean feat let me tell you. Some weeks I am not sure how I was able to do it. I don’t know if y’all have ever seen MRI scans of depressed brains next to “normal” not depressed brains, but the contrast is striking.
Next time you are depressed, try to remember this image. And be really gentle with yourself. Just look at how dim the brain on the left is. How weak it looks. But you’re trying your best to function. Good job! Are you sometimes failing having a hard time with care tasks and the activities of daily living? People without depression have days where they struggle and they are firing on six cylinders to your one. No wonder you sputter and misfire sometimes. I am not going to say that I do not struggle with feelings of self-hatred and that I don’t subject myself to the most baleful and withering self-talk.
I do.
On even my best days I berate myself in a way that would go viral on all social media if I acted that way toward a worker at a Long John Silver’s. Or an Arby’s that I mistook for a Long John Silver’s.
But during this latest bout with depression (you never beat depression forever) I tried to be much more forgiving of myself than before when I struggled to complete care tasks or had problems focusing on working or studying. My mantra has been that if self-hatred made me better, I would be a wildly successful screenwriter and entrepreneur with a body that looks like Brad Pitt’s in Fight Club. Jennifer and the cats and I would be tucked away in our gold house. Or one of the pools. And I would ride around town in my rocket car racing all the Fast & Furious types. I would pay my inevitable bribes donations to the Police Benevolent Fund out of my pocket millions. “Keep the change, officer.”
Yesterday during my tele-therapy session I took a couple of tests with my therapist, Cherie. One of which was a questionnaire with an alphabet soup of a name that makes it sound like a fighter jet prototype (PHQ-9) designed to assess the severity of my depressive state. A month ago I took the same test and it showed that I had Severe Depression. I got the highest score possible—which made this former gifted kid happy. “Maa, I got the highest score!”
Yesterday I took the test and was rated only Moderately Depressed. The test measures the past two weeks, and during the first week I was still severely depressed, which greatly skewed the results. The last week I have had almost no depressive symptoms. In my session I declared this depressive episode over. Cherie was judiciously circumspect and asked me if I feel like I’m still depressed. When I said no, she kind of nodded. I think she agrees with me. She does, right? We talked about symptoms of mania and hypomania and we agreed that I am probably not hypomanic even though my sleep has been very poor for several days. But I’m not having racing thoughts or feelings of grandiosity, I’m not especially irritable, I don’t have pressured speech and so on. This is good news, but we will continue to monitor the sleep, since disrupted sleep can really tank my mental health quickly.
I can feel parts of my brain coming back online and now I have tons of things that I want to do. Like pursue my new hobbies even pick some old ones back up. I want to write things that have a plot again. I want to finish my Google certificate. I want to put some movement in my life. I want to clean and organize the house. I want to find some paying work. In other words, I want to do all of the things. Which is so much better than struggling to do any of the things. I am pushing hard against my self-imposed deadline, so I am going to wrap this post up, but before I do, I want to tell y’all that I am having a Zoom party to celebrate coming out of this depression. Y’all are all invited. I have to think on the practicalities of that and maybe ask a friend’s advice, but it will be next Friday evening. In the next few days I will write another post with the details. No one is expected to come, but I would love to see some of your lovely faces. You do not have to stay long—I realize that we’re not in lockdown any longer and folks have in-person partying to do, but please come to my soirée.
Thank you all for the kind words of encouragement during the past several weeks. It really helped. Thank you for the kind gifts of money as well. The generosity of the wonderful folks who read this blog really blows me away.
Let’s party!
Thank you, as always, for reading.
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Those brain images are amazing. I don't suffer from depression (much) but have to deal with chronic migraines. Although I have very little bad self talk (I'm very lucky that way), during the bad times even I start thinking, why aren't I doing anything, why don't I want to move, etc. It is then so amazing when the migraine doldrums lift and what do you know. I WANT to do stuff, I enjoy physical movement, etc. So now, during the down times I have to really remind myself that my body is just not able to do that stuff, and that it isn't a judgement on my strength of character.
I hope your continued lift from the deep depression continues.