I have.<\/p>\n
I am.<\/p>\n
For a couple of days now, the storm of confusion and tiredness has raged loudly through my body and mind, numbing me, destabilizing me, making me angry and irritated, tired and messed up, frantic and restless.<\/p>\n
All the building blocks are there, the chemical impact is on, the whole fucking circus seems to be in town.<\/p>\n
But\u2026<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not all bad.<\/p>\n
The thing that is clearly missing, is the full identification.<\/p>\n
What is not there, is the usual absence of hope, the deep despair.<\/p>\n
The utter lostness.<\/p>\n
Those things ARE somehow present, but not fully, not completely convincing.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s depression going on for sure, but it\u2019s me having one, not being one.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not cool, to say the least, but it\u2019s also not torturous.<\/p>\n
I can handle it.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s more.<\/p>\n
I wrote about it earlier, how I feel that this has got to do with radical changes in my overall system (which I find rather exciting), but there\u2019s something else going on.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s like I am granted a unique opportunity, like I\u2019m some sort of Indiana Jones looking for the Temple of Mental Doom.<\/p>\n
An explorer.<\/p>\n
As if I get to appreciate the experience of being really depressed, up close, from top to bottom, but in a safe way.<\/p>\n
Like being in an utterly convincing simulation, while I am somehow very subtly but firmly grounded.<\/p>\n
And it makes all the difference.<\/p>\n
I remember when depressions used to sweep me up and take me away to pitch dark, far away places, deep cages where the light was blocked for weeks or even months.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an almost inhumane way to live, when the dull pain of lifelessness and lack of passion keeps you company wherever you go, tainting and poisoning each and every second of the day.<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t escape it, you can\u2019t run, especially since you\u2019re so fucking exhausted.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n
I feel safe, I am safe, while the caravan of madness passes through.<\/p>\n
The shit is not my shit.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a cruel reminder of the past, for sure.<\/p>\n
But somehow this is also a blessing in disguise.<\/p>\n
I just know that this will be over pretty soon, leaving me with a new level of respect for every person in the world going through this full-time and fully.<\/p>\n
Despite the total mess of this experience, I am a lucky guy.<\/p>\n
Lucky, lucky, lucky.<\/p>\n
My deepest love and sympathy for people suffering from this.<\/p>\n
I will not forget.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
(Photo by @themalicki, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Have you ever watched a depression from up close? I have. I am. For a couple of days now, the storm of confusion and tiredness has raged loudly through my body and mind, numbing me, destabilizing me, making me angry and irritated, tired and messed up, frantic and restless. All the building blocks are there, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[97,117,100,105,116,113,103],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32867"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32867"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32870,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32867\/revisions\/32870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}