The Cerebral Mum

Two results of me realising I’m depressed. I am seriously pissed off. And I am even more exhausted. Depression thinks it is useful. It defends itself. Cas has just gone down for his afternoon nap. I slept through his morning one and my body is screaming to sleep again. Maybe I will. Maybe I can’t do this. Is that what my body is trying to tell me? Well, it can get stuffed. Because I’m being attacked on two fronts, physically and mentally. My brain is trying to to undermine me, but it’s angry, and anger is energy. So here, brain, have your say…

Ahh, and now it’s gone all shy and is pretending to be calmly rational again. But I have scribbled evidence on the notepad in front of me to use against it:

So here I am. Self-diagnosed and totally fucking furious about it.

Why? Because I am arrogant and should not have allowed myself to devolve into this state.

Why? Because I have done this before and resent having to do this again.

I resent being a statistic…

I am pissed off because I do not want to engender sympathy and support…

I am pissed off because I am not dramatically depressed. I am not depressed in an interesting, theatrical way. Not in a creative way. I’m just stale and this depression is the commonplace, pedestrian kind that 1 in 5 (or whatever the damn statistic is) people experience. I think I’m too good for it. But no.

There is no rending of garments, no throwing of teacups, no hiding in closets, no cutting myself, no starving myself, no throwing up my food, no shaving off all my hair. No words words words like swords. Just this dead person I think I’m too good to be. Ennui is boring Lassitude is sloth. There is no gaping, wounded emptiness for all the world to see, no catharsis.

Just nothing.

And it is my fault, my fault, my fault. Because I thought I was so clever that I thought I was done. I know everything, like a teenager. I know the secrets of the world. I know the Truth. I know that I am exceptional. And here I am. Not exceptional. With no excuse.

There is no excuse for being here. Not for me. Because I’m clever. Clever in the most clever way. I have the ability to make connections, to see the connections between things that seem unconnected. I have the ability to make the world make sense. Paradox and insanity are my best friends. Like most of my best friends, I haven’t been paying much attention to them.

I’ve just been hiding and wallowing and shrinking and shirking my duty. It’s my duty to know myself, my duty to be myself. That is my moral code. It should be everyone’s, but me? Secretly, I like the rebelliousness of it. I like revolt. I think I’m special.

I let my high opinion of myself absolve me of that duty I haven’t been performing for years. That’s pathetic.

I am arrogant. And I like my arrogance. And I am paradoxical. I am proud of my big pains, my glaring, gaping wounds that no one could make shut up, even when it exhausted everyone around me. Oh, yes, being hurt in dramatic, theatrical ways makes you special too. I am so fucking arrogant that I thought I could, and would, handle everything life threw at me, that I was never a “victim” - that I would never be a “victim” - that I didn’t even bother to deal with the new shit that came my way.

That quiet, nagging shit, of people who wanted me to be smaller. That quiet, nagging shit of having to do meaningless work and conform and dress right and and pay bills. And eat and sleep like a “normal” person. Stupid fucking me just slowly crumbled beneath the weight of feathers.

That’s pathetic.

And the other thing that is pathetic: There’s a bigger thing that got to me, a few years ago. A bigger something outside of me that I had no control over. A bigger thing that was done to me, that, knowing all I know, should not have made me a victim. And I made myself a victim of it anyway.

That stupid boss whom I thought was my friend who grabbed me in the kitchen, and undid my top and restrained me from behind and grabbed my naked breast and made me scared because I couldn’t find away to make it stop. That guy was a fuckhead. I reported it to the police. After months, he got a fine and no conviction.

What pisses me off was not that it happened, was not the lost job, not the talk behind my back, not the warnings that me taking action would give me a bad reputation and make me unemployable. I knew what consequences there would be. What pisses me off is that all the resources I had within myself to deal with such a thing weren’t used. If I had worked my way through it, no matter how long it took and no matter how much I fucked up along the way, I would now be proud of myself.

What did I do instead, with all my brains and all my skills? I just left.

I just left it alone.

And that’s pathetic.

See, brain. You did have something to say.