Depression Sucks

Depression.  I hate depression.  I don’t have depression, at least I don’t think I do.  I hate what I see it doing to others around me.  It sucks all the joy out of any moment and makes the person feel it’s all or nothing, it’s black or white, it has to be this or that.  It doesn’t.  Life exists in many facets and things can be done while doing other things.  One can enjoy the beauty of the morning sky while also being ankle deep in a pile of mud.  I remember a parable about a monk, clinging to a small shrub, on the side of the mountain.  He was about to fall to his death, into the mouth of a hungry tiger, but glanced at the most beautiful strawberry growing on the side of the mountain.  In that moment, he wasn’t worried about his demise or his precarious position, he was thankful that the strawberry was there and ate it with love and appreciation in his heart.  

I’ve also read that anxiety is caused by living too much in the future and fear is caused by living too much in the past.  I have my fair share of both and try to do the best I can to work through those feelings or just push them wayyy down and let them bubble up through my skin.  :)  Jokes, but true.  I have suppressed my feelings for as long as I can remember.  I think this comes from feeling bad because others are feeling bad.  I feel that my emotions don’t count because, who am I to have feelings.  Most of my childhood was painted with this feeling and the adults were okay with me feeling this way because they didn’t have to deal with me.  I blended into the wood paneling, so to speak.  This wasn’t and isn’t healthy and I know that now.  However, I still feel that if I tell someone how I feel, especially those close to me, that their disappointment or sadness was caused by me and that I shouldn’t make them feel this way.  Not very healthy.  

My childhood wasn’t all bad and my dad had some pretty awesome nuggets of knowledge that he bestowed to me.  Once he said, “Only believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.”  That has rang true throughout my life.  This skepticism has helped keep me safe a few times, but it has also kept possibilities at arms length to me.  I only know one way to get something and I’m working on that, I think.  I’m letting this information out of my head.  How am I supposed to keep myself safe while also accepting universal possibilities?   

What am I saying all this for?  How can this be corralled into a cohesive and manageable thing?  How can I domesticate this thought?  I can’t.  It just has to be it’s wild and wacky self and keep growing and changing and flowing through my life.  I don’t have any answers to any of the questions in this post.  I do know that love is the best thing in my life.  I will approach myself with this love.  I will approach this situation with love.  I will approach the answers that come with love.  Love.