Sit on the Pot and Keep it Balanced

When I was a youngster in high school a good friend of mine and I decided to take a weight lifting class. Now, the reasons for doing this ranged from being able to tell girls we were in a weight lifting class to actually trying to get buff. Of course though, the biggest reason was for the ladies. The first couple of days brought all sorts of emotions and feelings but the strongest feeling was pain. As my friend and I would walk up to those lovely weight lifting machines we really had no clue how they worked. We sure pretended like we did but we had no earthly idea. We would always let the other guys waiting for the machine behind us go first so we could get some sort of glimpse of how to use the darn things. When we took our turns we really didn't want to look like wimps so we usually left the weight the same the person was using before, which ended up reeking havoc on our muscles. I became pretty good at showing others the weight I was lifting wasn't that bad at all but holy crap was I hurting. The nice thing about the class was that it was during the period right before lunch. I lived close enough to the school where I would run home for lunch and take a shower. Doing lunch at home was always a shooting match though because there were times I just didn't leave on time to get back to school which would end up getting that lovely tardy thing checked. Who knew you could fail a class for excessive tardies ... I mean I was there and doing the work, right? Anyway, those first couple of days of lifting were brutal. I remember taking a shower after the class and not being able to raise my hands above my shoulders. My friend and I were hurting in a bad way but it always felt good to tell the ladies that we were lifting weights. Eventually we did end up learning how to lift correctly and made it through the class. As the class came to an end the only thing I ended up with was a six pack and an understanding that the ladies really didn't care that I lifted weights.

You know, as I look back on the years I have suffered depression I have learned a lot about it and myself ... and still am learning. For me, it is truly like having your world as you know it turned on it's head and you left to figure out what happened and what the next steps are. I have no earthly idea if I will ever be able to "go back" to the person I was and truth be told I really don't know if I want to. There are characteristics about who I was that I would be okay leaving behind allowing me to be healthier. I do hope and work to be the good parts of who I was. Understanding depression for me isn't an easy thing to do. Sure, you look it up in the dictionary and it talks about sadness, mental illness and such but for me I think there is so much more. For me it's been striving to find the line between what emotions are caused by my depression and the emtions I feel from just experiencing everyday life. There is the question of why loneliness is so prevelant an emotion I feel daily and why it crescendos so rapidly if I haven't heard from any one for a day let alone my friends. There is pain in loneliness that truly hurts and can hurt badly. I remember watching a comedian once who was telling what his mom would tell him to do if he was in pain. "Oh, your stomach hurts ... go sit on the pot. Oh, you have a headache ... go sit on the pot. Oh, you have cut your elbow ... go sit on the pot. Oh, your finger was cut off ... go sit on the pot." The way he said it made me laugh til I was crying. Too bad it just isn't that easy. I recently was talking with my psychologist about the pain of loneliness and expressed how I feel I need more love from others besides my wife in my life. He did one of those smiles and told me that I am making progress. Of course, I sat back on the leather couch thinking oh man I have finally broke him. He then proceeded to help me see that in my journey how perhaps I have made a step forward or so. This one I will keep close to my chest for now, maybe sharing later when I am ready. I wish that meant that the pain would be gone or that I could smile and mean it more. I am immensley glad and full of thanks though to have someone professionally to talk to and even though I am hurting he can help me see that I am taking a step. For me there is a clear distinction though between "working through the pain" that came with weight lifting and learning to tolerate the pain of depression. Sad to say, there are still too many that think one can work through the pain of depression. It just is simply not that way and those that think otherwise are just showing their lack of knowledge and understanding. In fact, that mentality actually hinders more than anything. That's all the attention I want to pay to those folks for now. Anyway, for me I have learned that I am the extreme of all extremes. I either give until there is nothing left to give and after that still try to give or I extremely dislike the world and pretty much everyone in it. Even though  pain and I seem to being spending more time together lately I know that I took a step to finding the balance and that is something that gives hope to keeping hanging on.