I started this blog maybe 18 months ago because I wanted fellow troubled souls to know they are not alone. So far, I have only six followers and .over 2000 page views. Several people read this blog consistently--if two is several. I hoped to reach more with personal stories about my battle with the beast of depression. The interest is absent and it costs me a lot of second-guessing? And have I really helped anyone?
Keep your eye on this spot because next time this blog comes out--if there is a next time--these personal confessions of mine may cease.
I wear my heart on my sleeve, in these blogs and on Facebook. Strangers, long-lost friends, family, and my local friends and acquaintances are privy to my innermost battles. This used to be the stuff I would discuss with my counselors or very close friends. For some--for me, this blog and FB has become a spot to tell all, or nearly all.
Again, pay attention to this part, because it might be your last glimpse at the destruction I have caused. Last year, in the month of August, I sat with a friend I worked with, but someone I really did not know that well, and cried like a baby. In the midst of recovering from a severe episode of depression, I spilled my guts. Some friends of mine know my issues, revealed to them via emails and messages. Some family members don't know about it though, yet I revealed these secrets to mere strangers. Why?
It is important to me to stay on top of my moods, but am I just sharing them because I am looking for help or for sympathy? If I share for sympathy, I may well never recover (or develop) my sense of well-being.
Often I feel like one of the nerds on The Big Bang. Whenever they meet up with one of Penny's old boyfriends, their inadequacies in the "Manly-men" department are apparent, not only to the audience but to the nerd characters. Am I manly-male? No, sorry, I am woefully inadequate. It's not that I can't pound a nail, or run a chainsaw, but I am pretty self-obsessed. If any poor feminine soul were prepared to take me home to mother at this late date in my life, they would find a guy who likes to write romantic poetry, is editing a vampire novel that strangely mirrors more about his depression than his desire to possess the women in the book, and who needs a nap more often than his two-and-a-half year granddaughter. Any takers?
What comes from all this honesty then. It is that I embarrass my family and come out looking neither attractive, well-rounded, or even sane. I am some anachronism--an effete being better suited to a bed in Victorian England, dashing out poems, consumptively coughing, and awaiting death and a headstone in some London graveyard. Ah, sounds at least somewhat romantic, except I haven't written that famous book of poems or even a passable novel. Actually, such romantic artists were pretty rare even in Victorian England. The Pre-Raphaelite artists I admire so much, tended to be fairly long-lived womanizers who rarely allowed a setback to stop them. That ain't me babe.
Look, I hate getting old. I hate my friends are getting old, but I also hate that people just sort of go away and disappear. But one can't simply stop living because life is unkind. Where this leaves me is unknown, but I think it is time for me to pull back and share a little less than I generally do.
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