No, You Can't...

...that's what my depression feels like, sometimes. Like a little voice in the back of my head, whispering "No, you can't."

No, you can't live with someone.

No, you can't live alone.

No, you can't be a part of things.

No, you can't be normal.

No, you can't decide what "normal" even means.

No. You just can't.

It's gotten worse, since my wife left. Though I'm sure her absence hasn't helped, I don't actually think it's losing her that's made it worse. I think her absence has just let it go unchecked. I have no one to bother being in a good mood for anymore. But if I need someone else to get myself in a better mood, then am I really in a good mood at all?

Aside from the whole separation thing, life ain't too bad for me. Work is going fine. I've begun looking into some adjunct teaching positions at the local community colleges. I see my friends on the weekends, binge-watch Netflix and play videogames during the weeks, all that stuff. I even talk to my wife, almost every night, and we have a great time video chatting with each other. The depression is just there. Like any really shitty condition, there really aren't any good reasons why it's there. It just is.

And I know what I'm supposed to do. And I'm doing it. I'm talking to my psychiatrist to further adjust my medications. I'm hanging out with my friends and trying to have a life. I'm talking to a therapist every Friday afternoon. There's not a whole lot left for me to do except to follow the plan and survive. 

The tough part, I think, is that I feel like my depression is evolving with me. Like its learning to use my own weapons against me. A lot of depressed people, for example, have these expectations about what they're supposed to be. They think they're "supposed" to be normal, or they think they're "supposed" to be happy. I know better than that. I know that I don't have to be anything I don't want to be. But the depression takes that, it mutates it, and the thought that comes out is "If you don't have to be anything special, then why don't you just stop trying?" Maybe that's why smarter people suffer more from depression. Because the depression in those bigger brains are more capable of overcoming treatment. I don't know where I fit in that, but either way, it sucks.