taking a little break

just posting this brief note that i haven't forgotten about this blog and there is plenty more for me to share about recent events. i'm just taking a break for an extended weekend visit with a dear friend who is here from out of town. i hope everyone has a great weekend, and i promise we will get back to more introspective musings next week.

connected

i woke up this morning with a familiar feeling. it was a sense of a deep and long held sadness. as i got dressed and prepared to leave my house for the day, the feeling got more pronounced to the point that i was pretty weepy as i was pulling out of my garage.

a few weeks back, i had written in these electronic pages that i had wondered if my depression had mutated into a different form. the query had arisen from the experience i was having at the time (and pretty much since until most recently) of feeling neither happy or sad and really unsure about how to move beyond that state.

over the past few days, i've been sharing that my mood seems to be shifting from that betwixt and between state to more profound sadness. as a result i'm starting to rethink my mental model about what is happening in the realm of my emotions, which likely has been a lifelong dynamic. i don't think it's that my depression has mutated. instead i think there is a central source of deep emotional pain that exists in me that has developed from my somewhat challenging upbringing and the depression (at least the form that is situationally and not biologically based) manifests as i connect with that place of pain.

think about it from a electrical outlet and lamp illustration. the electrical outlet is the connector to the power source (the emotional pain) and the lamp is the instrument of the visible manifestation of that power (my depression). in the most basic sense, when the lamp is plugged into the outlet, the light goes on. when it's not plugged in, the lamp stays off. so it has been with my depression -- "plugged in," depression; disconnected, no depression. now that's the simple version. obviously there are degrees of being "connected," hence creating degrees of depression and at times the connection can exist, but the lamp doesn't come on because the light switch has not been turned on.

this latter condition, i believe, explains the mood i've been in most recently. i had a sense that the "power" was there, but the switch was off. and i think it's my mother's visit that has turned the switch back on. going back even further, i think it's my challenges and eventual break up with michael that plugged me back in to the outlet.

the most interesting aspect of this construct for me is that i'm realizing that whether i'm connected or disconnected, the power source still exists and is running away in the background. the key really seems to be how do i change the power source from this feeling of being isolated and unlovable to one that has a more positive orientation on who i am in this world. a pretty significant challenge though is the fact that this power source has been in play for much of my life and i have no earthly idea how to change it. i suppose that's why i'm in therapy.

a quarter full?

in looking back on this past weekend, i would have say that the experience, particularly on sunday, more closely resembled what my weekends were like in the first half of the year rather than the ones i've had most recently. it was a challenging time of trying to stay positive and hopeful about life, and while i wouldn't say that i fell victim to utter despair (something that was pretty common from january through june), i can't exactly say i was all that happy either, but i pushed through to the best of my ability.

now on this second day of the week, my mood continues to be subdued but it has improved. i find at least some small solace in that fact as i was beginning to wonder if the decline was going to continue unabated until i was back in the "hide all sharp objects" zone once again. now i think i'm pretty much back to that neither happy nor sad state.

and while the perspective on the improvement certainly reflects a glass half full approach, if i were to go with my usual glass half empty lens, i am questioning if i will ever feel better than the way i do at this time in life. and that thought alone makes me wonder if the glass is really even half full.