Yawn

I spoke to my parents this morning - ostensibly, they'd called for a chat, but it soon emerged that they were worried about me following yesterday's blog: apparently I didn't sound particularly convincing when I wrote that I hoped I'd get through this current low patch.

I tell you what is one of the most irritating things about depression: it's so freaking boring. Day in, day out, you think you're getting somewhere, and then all of a sudden, the snake slithers over and starts to suck you in again. Other health conditions seem to change and evolve over the years, adding a little bit of interest to an otherwise dull and unpleasant scenario, but this depression hilarity just seems to come and go in waves, and you never seem to know when you go to bed whether tomorrow will be a day like normal people experience, where you just pootle along through your various assigned chores and activities and then go to bed, or a day where the men in your skull suck away your positivity and press against your eyes, and every single thing you have to do, from standing up to go to the loo to getting off the tube station when you get to your stop, becomes a monumental and dreaded effort. I've longed to get home all day today, but when the Northern Line train pulled up to my home platform, I very nearly couldn't make it to the door. And it's not tiredness. It's like a magnetic force that pulls you away from wanting to do anything you should do, or anything you have to do; an evil sorcerer who turns everything you touch into the opposite of what you wanted. I'm at work, I want to go home. I'm at home getting ready to go out, I want to be in bed. I'm out at a gig, I feel guilty for drinking wine (fattening) or spending money. I'm wishing my day away and it's awful.

And my sadness is so vicious. A) it is deeply unpleasant to experience. B) the longer it goes on for, the longer it will go on for. It is self-perpetuating and I know I have to stop it, but I can't seem to control it. C) I am upsetting my parents, my parents who love me. I don't want to upset them. I want them to be happy. But that would involve hiding my feelings, and writing this is one of the few outlets I have where I can speak about how it really feels to be in my head. So I write, but then I feel guilty about that too.

Despite this current plummet (and it's like I've been pushed off a cliff), I still believe that I have made progress in recent weeks and months. In many ways, the snake's venom hasn't been nearly as poisonous this time. I'm taking my drugs, I'm going to therapy, I'm eating pretty healthily, I'm not drinking to excess, I'm exercising regularly, I'm going to bed early enough, I'm reading, I'm writing, I'm playing music and singing, I'm seeing friends, I'm going to work, I'm socialising, I'm keeping mindful of my many blessings, I'm meditating, I give to charity, I engage with the outside world, I don't drink too much caffeine, I take time to switch off and watch bad TV a couple of times a week, I'm not stressed at work, I have several wonderful friends, I have a gorgeous family who love me, I have holidays to look forward to and I have no regrets. My present and my future are bright.

OK, so my past is an issue, there's no denying that. I've spent 33 years feeling wrong, and no matter how good my therapist is, no matter that I'm doing all that good stuff listed above or that I've accepted that I have major issues, it's still going to take a long time to put right. I'm clinging on to the fact that this woman said it took her a year, and she seems pretty clever. I've been in therapy off and on since 2006, but for various reasons, this current stint feels like the only real one, and I'm seven months in. Five months from now, I hope I'm in a very different place.

In the meantime, when these new peaks reveal themselves, and I realise anew that my journey of self-discovery is far from over, and will in fact never end, how do I stop myself from giving in to self-pity? How do I prevent the fifty foot wave of envy taking me out as I observe the people who laughingly surf life's ocean with ease and grace, never struggling in the perpetual rip tides I seem to encounter. I'm a strong swimmer but it's hard to keep up the energy month after month. I'm sick of things being so hard, sick of this knowledge that I'll never be this young again, that I'm ruining the greatest gift that can be given with my utterly needless negativity. What I'd give to be one of the simple ones, the ones who potter, who amble, who don't ask questions. But someone gave me the red pill and it's too late to spew it up.

So I have to learn to love my situation. It's a big ask, but it's my only choice. As Eckhart Tolle always says, why fight the only thing that is? Philosopher, Alain De Botton, wrote on Twitter today, "I find it hard to be friends with people who don't find life something to be almost continuously anxious about." I wrote back to him, "You would LOVE me then." But if that's a precondition of being friends with Alain De Botton, I'd rather get better and have him shun me. Here's hoping Alain meets and hates me in the next few months.