Getting High on Recovery

Depression is a Spiny Toothed Madman

___

Sometimes my mind talks to me. Or more correctly, my depression talks to me. And sometimes it’s so much crazy-talk that I think of it as the comedy of your inside voice.

When my head is right, my life is right. Journal entry April 1. No Joke.

My inside voice has a name: The Spiny Toothed Madman (I got that name from the Dead Poets Society). And he throws temper tantrums. I think that he’s really a two year old, and sometimes he wears a mask. He likes to float into my life in the form of a dark depression.

10 Ways that depression is like a two-year-old

1. He demands and wants his way through any means: reminding, shouting, yelling or crying.
2. He can’t remember a damned thing from the short term, but he is really good picking out the few mistakes that I make.
3. He is a closet critic. He does not have the balls to tell the world, he just tells me how stupid or unsuccessful or weak he thinks I am.
4. He lives in the corners, doing his best work when he can corner me and trap me into thinking small and short term, like he does.
5. Expectations are his food and his main weapons.
6. He shouts and then he whispers, never quite sure how he wants to communicate with me.
7. He wants me to take everything personally.
8. He is scrawny and underdeveloped. He can only speak self criticism and self doubt, self doubt on steroids.
9. He does his best work in the fog. You know – the fog that comes over you when you are really depressed. It feels like a blanket, but not the fuzzy warm kind. He gets you under the blanket then he gets between your ears.
10. And he lies, saying that I am alone and that what I have accomplished is all that I will ever do.

What I do with the inner two-year-old: AKA, depression.

Two year olds cannot be reasoned with. But they can be bribed with ice cream and trucks. They need new diapers, food and reasonable bed times.

Depression is kinda like the two year old (Keep in mind, I’m not a doctor and I only say what I am doing that works at least some of the time):

• Don’t waste time trying to reason with him. The head games seem to win every time.
• Don’t spank him. You just end up hurting yourself.
• You have to try and ignore the tantrums. Remember you are more than this.
• Get regular sleep and good food. When I eat too much junk food, the two year old eats it up like steroids. The next two days I have to live with his crazy talk, so it’s better to avoid the crap.
• Don’t forget the trucks and ice cream. Play at things and be gentle, don’t take yourself seriously. And eat the damned ice cream. It’s just good stuff.
• Too much time alone doth make for a nasty two year old: take him for walks and be with other people who care.
• Take him for a walk. The more my legs move, it just seems to shut the two year old Spiny Toothed Mad Man up.
• Laugh. Watch comedy. Watch children. Watch Donald Trump or pretty much any other politicians. Do anything you can do to get something to laugh about.

If you like this, laugh. If you want more about depression, you can read here about My Personal Terrorist.

Keep it Real

Photo by Christine Szeto