Saturday, December 18, 2010

Letting go...

I think it is my moments of weakness when I succumb to feeling helpless so much that I reach out and ask for help.

No one can help me conquer depression. And any help offered which is designed to do that leaves the giver with feelings of failure at best, or else anger or frustration. Or gives the doctors a source of income.

I understand why it fundamentally and only my responsibility and that is why I probably (most likely) will fail and the rest of my life .. how ever long looks bleak with moments of reprieve.

To care about me and include me in your life is like stepping past the event horizon of a black hole. I am not sure it has to be that way ... but I am nearly certain that it is that way for those I love and wish would reach out to me. And I am assuming that there are people who do care and that I am loved.

I often wonder what it means to care about someone and to love them. For me, excluding those moments of weakness, it means letting go, letting them thrive without me.

Some people I let go of because it hurts me too much. Some I let go of so I won't have to hear them tell me it is my fault for being depressed and not doing what it takes to change it. It's not that I don't agree with them, it is just that telling me that is not going to make things better or change my inability to change.

It's hard to be sure if I don't change because I cannot or because I do not. I am not sure it really matters as the result is the same.

I suppose if I am able that everyone will feel righteous or guiltless or uninterested. I suppose if I am not, no one will ever know for sure, because the only way to be certain that I am able is for me to change.

I understand that I and everyone is responsible for our own self but I wonder why that means that one should let people reap the repercussions of their choices when kindness would make a difference.

We help people when natural disasters hit ,.. even when the hit again and again and again in the same places.

We think of depression as a disease to medicate and lock up, but also as a choice which people have the ability to overcome.

What is a choice is that I do not have to be cold. I could be warm in my parent's home. But today that means killing my dog. I don't have it in me to do that. It's arguable that I should do it anyway and that if I don't, I deserve what I make of that choice.

I suppose I keep trying to have my cake and eat it. I want my freedom and my dog on my terms and I want some way of getting the charity offered me in a way that I can use. That's not an option ... I haven't found a way to stay in Vermont and have family help me, even with the smallest gestures. No one wants to help sustain me if I live here. I just hope I die free. I want to live free, and I hope I succeed how ever I live or that I die trying.

That's not what I most want. What I most want is to thrive free.

At this moment I cannot remember the name of the women that I saw for more than a year for depression and anxiety. I can see the office, the stairs leading up, the couch, chairs , desk, but I cannot remember what was on the pillows or pictures ... or her name and possibly I would not recognize her face. My brother, Raimond, believes I should be able to; my brother Rich believes I don't care to know his children if I don't remember their names at a particular moment. But that's like saying to color blind person, you should be able to tell red from green. And therein lies the dilemma of what I can and cannot do. Rich's kids names are Maranda and Sommer and I know this now because of the unusual spelling and having helped my daughter with this for Christmas presents. What can I really do?

I just don't think it matters what the truth is ... what I do is what I do and whether or not I survive and how is just what it is.

I almost always keep the sadness and pain away from those I love, and I did let them know because it would have been wrong to have them never know and never have an opportunity to help, had they wanted to. In hindsight, though, I would have been kinder to never let them know and never ask them for help and to just die.

I am not a good enough person to not ever ask for what I want and to keep my personal failing to myself. It just doesn't matter if it is how I am or not, I was weak to indulge my desire to have those I love in my life and I am sorry for that.

I do write all this for myself. I would like to be forgiven. I would like to think that exposure of how it is like to lived depressed could become useful for other people ... most likely, if at all, after I die. I cannot erase from my being, my desire to matter.

I do not know how to matter to me .. somehow I feel I matter if I matter to other people. I understand this is not normal and it is a broken way to be. I don't think anyone ever fixes what is broken; I do believe, if I am lucky enough, I can have love anyway. I have had that at times in my life. I hope for that. I do know for a fact, that I am able to love and be kind, and when I see opportunities ... I do that.

And I have a mind and ideas that I can share.

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About Me

United States
speaking to a universe without ears