Please Don't Ask Me...

What's set it off?

When I have a break down, yes, some minor thing might have precipitated it. But it's only because I'm depressed that I'm unable to cope and I cry in despair because how I'm really feeling is unmasked. "It" is always there.

What needs to happen to make you feel better?

As much as it would be great for us both that I could take a magic pill or some thing happens to make everything good again, unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. I've been feeling like this for such a long time, that my brain chemical circuit has been rewired such that good things happening in my life won't make a difference. Take for example, granting of my full registration and my HSMP. The lead up to both caused such dread and anxiety that even with their resolution to a good outcome, I still have the same dread and anxiety. In fact, they've been compounded precisely because I haven't experienced the weight of the world lift off my shoulders. Hence, I answer your question of will moving back to Sydney make things better, with, "No."

Why don't you come our for a beer with -anyone- and I?

Because it's getting harder for me to pretend, to act 'normal.' I don't want the world to see me this way. I'm finding it difficult to be amiable because the current me keeps threatening to blow my cover. It's the same reason why I rarely answer phone calls from friends, or find going out a chore. I don't want those dearest to me or those who don't know me (lest they think that I'm a depressing person and don't want anything to do with me....or they see a drunken party princess always up for a good time - that's just me overcompensating), to see the failure of a being I've become. I don't want to feel the shame of that.

Most people don't really understand what it means to be depressed. It' s not a generic term for having a bad day, or feeling crappy, or feeling a bit emotional and moody. I know well enough some of the people around me to know that that is what they'd think. And trivialize. And I'd be more hateful of their ignorance and condescending sympathy.