Monday, March 29, 2010

Depression's Out the Door, and I'm all Ready to Cry ??

Do you know anyone who's biggest problem is themselves? I mean whether it be physical illness, depression, anxiety etc.. all their efforts, all their energy and time is put into dealing with that problem?

I used to be very much like this. I struggled with what i self-diagnosed as depression for two years, then an eating disorder for another year and a half, then back to the depression when that was over. I was my own biggest problem. My main relationship was with the gym and my strict eating regiment--it controlled me, I would leave a party, and take a twenty minute subway ride across town to make it to the gym before it closed.

Then with the depression, everything had to be scheduled around therapy appointments, I was seeing different natural doctors to try and 'get things in balance' of course i was dabbling in yoga too.
The point is, I was always controlled by something, but the other morning, everything came together for me, I felt complete freedom, and I didn't know what to do with it.

Of course it didn't happen over night, it has taken years to get here, but my eyes just happened to be wide open in this moment and i realized how drastically different it was from any i'd had in the previous years. In fact, how impossible it would have been for me to have had such a moment before.

I was sitting at the table next to my mother's swimming pool with my guy. We were eating pancakes, eating them slowly and playing with one another's hands.

It was a simple moment, really it was, but it never would have happened two years ago.

Two years ago, I scrambled all my clothes together off my boyfriend's floor at 5 in the morning to rush to begin my morning workout and make sure i got to eat the same goddamn high-fiber, high-protein, ZERO flavor cereal i had at home.
OR
One year prior I would have just been laying in my bed staring at the blank tv screen for an hour thinking, "do i have to do today? I dont want to?"

None of this moment by the pool would have been possible. A love, pancakes, and just staring at the pool rather than feeling guilty for not swimming laps in it!

I told my guy, "I feel so happy this morning, that I am sad."

And I realized, all those problems i'd had (or indulged) for the previous few years, had kept me from looking outside myself.
And now I could. I had all the health and power to look outside myself. Life was no longer just a struggle to breathe! I had reached that plateau, and once I was standing on it, I didn't know what to do there.

Our "problems", be they self-enforced, real, false, whatever...keep us from facing happiness. And What the hell do you do with that? Isn't it the same as facing mortality? When you're no longer struggling just to be alive, what do you do with your new found life?

5 comments:

  1. Wow. Lots to think about here! I wonder sometimes, though, if thinking is my main problem. ;)

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  2. I can definitely relate to depression issues but it makes sense, to feel happy and sad at the same time once you realize whats gone on all your life. But now that you can enjoy simple moments, just breathe and take in life and don't look back, keep on forward =)

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  3. Holy cow! That is pretty deep. I think the biggest thing I have learned is staying in the moment. When I can stay in the moment, not thinking about the gym, food, myself, TOMORROW, bills ect. That is always when I feel joy. Not happy, but the joy in that moment of just being with your BF. Since it's really hard to stay in the moment, I really try to appreciate them for what they are......A gift.

    I wanted to thank you for your always kind, thoughtful and heartfelt comments. They are much appreciated.

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  4. I love this! What you wrote is so true, indeed. Once we find ourselves actually living "in the moment" and realize we are a part of us may question it..no?

    My life has changed drastically in the last 9 months or so and there is less struggle and stress and worrying..and "my guy" who after years of giving up on love I found it when not even looking or wanting it to! How's that for a good new beginning? I have a poster with a little girl standing in the rain with her hands held up high..and it says "Suddenly life comes back"...I put it somewhere in a post in my blog years ago.

    So glad for you after all your struggles that "suddenly life comes back"..

    All my best to you,

    Rhiannon

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  5. I think we all have times in our life when we are self-obsessed. I did the frantic gym at dawn and dusk thing too in my late teens...

    But you know what, it's part of growing up...

    When we're young we think that the whole world is thinking of us and this makes us self-absorbed, but as we grow older we discover that it really wasn't thinking of us at all...so we eat pancakes without guilt.

    How lovely it is to be so happy that you're sad! Happens to me when I look at my daughters and think how much I love them.

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