Lethargy, Black Holes, and Meh...

Blah, blah, blah... Life continues... Blah, blah, blah.

I have neglected this blog because I've been posting on Facebook so much, so very, very much.  However, all my FB posting has ceased lately.  I haven't been to FB to read anybody else's posts.  I have been down in the black hole, and so much of what I want to say when I have the energy to post at all is not for consumption by family members or certain friends.

I'm as far down the black hole as I've been in a long time.  The trigger seemed to be Robin Williams' death, which happened not long after I felt that I was managing to crawl out of the black hole or at least closer to the top of it.  He was 10 years older than I am. He fought depression for years, with some measure of success, meaning he didn't kill himself, until finally that black hole swallowed him whole.  Why that day and not any of the days before that one?  At what point, if ever, will I, after battling depression with some measure of success, finally succumb to the finality of the black hole's infinite depth?

These are the thoughts that have made themselves resident in my brain the last few weeks.  So much has been written about depression since then or at least been reprinted online since then that I have had much fodder for my hunger for information.  No matter how many times I read it or how many sources report it, I still struggle with depression being an actual medical disease rather than a moral or character failing.  Having grown up in a family that believed and taught that you just have to buck up and deal with it no matter what IT is, I struggle to deal with my IT in any way other than berating myself for my failure as a human being.  Not only can I not deal with it on my own, I'm not even succeeding with the combination of therapy and meds that I'm on.  I am, in my mind, a complete and utter failure.

I'm sitting so far down the black hole that I don't even see a way up.  It seems the only way is to sit here on this very low ledge in the hole (I still think the bottom, if there is a bottom to the black hole, is farther down) and stay as still as possible because any movement might make me fall even further into the hole.  I don't, at this moment, see the possibility of making progress upward.  I don't see stairs, a ladder, or even a rope.  I can't see myself committing suicide, but if I went to sleep and never awoke it seems like it would be a blessing in many ways for everyone.  If I just ceased to be... meh, who cares?

Please know that I continue to see my therapist regularly and that I have scheduled an appointment with my psychiatrist for later this month even though I wouldn't normally have had another appointment with her until late November.  I'm trying to do what I can, but the lethargy that accompanies depression is a daunting foe.  Getting out of bed in the morning seems almost too much, yet I manage most days to do so, and to get dressed, and go to work, and take care of the essential things that W and N need from me.

I doubt people around me even really realize the depth of my depression.  When I do venture out into the world it is after I have psyched myself up to put on the face of one who is fine.  I don't even let my guard down around W or N because whenever I do it upsets them too much, and I don't want to worry either of them.  However, when I'm alone -- in the shower, in the car, in the restroom at work, wherever I catch that brief moment to myself -- I cry.  I cry, and I cry, and I cry.  For the least little reason or no reason at all, I cry as though my heart was breaking.