Appropriate Quotes #1

There are times when I cannot describe depression, mine in particular, with words of my own. There's a page that I visit often called A Sea Of Quotes and the person who runs it posts quotes or snippets out of books or poems that people submit and that are favourite finds.

Often I save this with the appropriate author as the name and often the ones I save are the ones that I find describe me best. I want to share some of those as today I can't put enough words together to make something meaningful. This is todays emotion filled post.

      Joseph Gordon Levitt

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Katie McGarry

 

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Kay Redfield Jamison

 

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Unknown

 

 

Another-unmotivated-human-being

Samantha.



Motivation; Of Lack Thereof

A lack of posts for the past few days can be explained. A) it was my birthday, and B) I wasn't motivated to do anything other than mope.

One thing I've found with depression is that when dealing with it, you tend to have depressive spells. Rather obvious so far right? Well....in my case, and in a few cases I know, when these depressive spells occur, I also end up with a large lack of motivation. This motivation is rather because I am in a mood that is 'downer' and lifeless. Feeling numb means feeling not sad and not hurt, it also means not feeling happy. It also means not feeling excited about something. It means a lack of motivation.

This lack of motivation comes from the fact that well, you don't want to do anything. Depression is not so much the hurt and pain, or the sadness or numbness. It's not happiness and being excited about things. It's more often than not, a lack of these things. You lack motivation, you lack the will to get up and do something, say something, socialise.

Motivation is what drives us in our lives, it's what causes up to actually do things. Eating is driven by motivation; a motivation to eat which is driven by hunger, or emotional distress in many cases. So a lack of motivation, leads to a pretty dull, stale life.
A lack of motivation can cause problems in even the simplest of lives. The will to do something is strong in our lives; the will to get out of bed in the morning, to run for the bus or train, to hang out with friends or even to get changed out of our pyjamas. There is an alternate form of this, which is a sense of duty, or rather, doing something or somebody else. Often routine comes into that too, but that's an alternate part of this conversation.

So depression causes a lack of everything, in particular motivation to do things. To fight your way out of depression requires that aforementioned motivation, which often you are lacking. The only way to fight your way out is to find something that works, that gives you a want to do something, to give you motivation. Like if you want to get fit and make it your duty to go to the gym to get fit, you will have to fulfil your promise to yourself to achieve your goal and it will give you the motivation to do this action. It snowballs from there. So small goals, leading to long term goals. Something to improve your life, or change it in good ways. A small goal, weekly perhaps. That leads into a bigger change or goal. If you want it badly enough, it will give you the motivation you require, to get up in the morning, and do something for YOURSELF, because often that is the hardest part. The doing something for yourself.

That's what this is for me. My goal is to be able to express myself better and to fight my way out of my depression, even for good times. This is what my blog does for me. My motivation is to write a blog post at least one every 2 days, that's what I have to do to succeed on this blog. And I have to enjoy it, or get something from it, and I do.

Average-for-myself-(which is to say below average for normal people)-existing-human-being

Samantha.

Depression Gravity Metaphor

Depression for me, was described best by a youtuber of the likes I've never seen before. He doesn't promote himself, or his channel, and you find him through his tweets and starring in the company videos he helps create, and his name is Wot Fanar.

He said in one of his videos (aptly named 'Depression For Me') that depression seemed to be like gravity. People from it often get pulled down. He said that normal people that aren't suffering depression seem to float in a normal, mid level happiness type of position. They move about, up and down depending on their mood, but can stay hovering at that level.
People with depression however, are the ones influences by gravity. They have their ups, and can defy the depression ('gravity') for a while, eventually it will bring them back down, and quite suddenly they'll end up on the ground.

Depression is different for all people, but for me, it is like that in spirit. Often I have moments where I am happy, but overall I sit at a reasonable below average sort of mood. I have my rare moments of happiness, but overall I sit at that below average mood. However, I liken depression more to a slippery slope, of gravel or sand, or maybe even a quarry, depending on how you look at it.
You have the normal people, who float, and me, who stands on the surface of the earth, at the edge of the hole or crater. As depression lures me in, I start to slide. I slide slowly down into the dark hole, unaware of anything else. I have three stages in my darkness, three levels to it. The first is sadness, and loneliness. I feel awfully sad and sometimes lonely, but I am still mainly functioning at that level.
The second is pain. Pain of memories past, things that have happened. I bet myself up about the past a lot. One of my favourite lines out of a poem I wrote was this:
"I don't cut, I don't harm myself,
But I look at my arms and see a mass of scars."
This refers to the fact that I purposely bring up memories to hurt myself. But that is a post for another day. There's too much to that particular point. Often this pain layer tends to be the thickest. To stop myself by putting on my mask, to try and claw my way out of the depression at this point hurts too much. It ends up with me sitting in the pain level for a while and then slowly inching my way out of it. Often if I get to that stage, I give up and slip into the third layer.
The third layer is the darkest of my layers. But it's also the most comfortable. It's where I feel like I belong, warm and safe. It's numbness. It's the void. I slip through the sadness and the pain, and slip through into nothingness. I feel no hurt, no pain, nothing of the sort. I only feel numb. And after the pain and hurt, numb is preferable. Numb is preferable to the emotions of the world.

And so I find myself in the void, the darkness, the numbness, more often than I think is good for me. I can't say I don't like it, because it's comfortable, but I find that when I'm there, it saps my energy, my will to do something. It takes away my motivation. I also have dark thoughts and sometimes the pain does still seep through, and sometimes the life above still comes through. But mainly when I'm in the darkness, I'm running on autopilot.

Average-mood-for-a-depressive
Samantha.

Poem - Noise

This fits in with yesterday's ending about feeling trapped in the mask. It's a poem called Noise. I'm not sure who the copyright belongs to, I can't even find it on Google. If you know of the poem, or even know the author, please let me know. :)

I'll end this post with a poem that I found a while ago, before my depression actually, that fits almost exactly what I feel when I feel trapped.
 
Noise
I must keep talking, keep moving,
Keep buzzing.
If I stop I'll hear the silence.
I hate silence.
Nothing to distract me,
From the fact that I am,
Alone in here.
Trapped in a mask I can't take off.
Aching. Churning. Sad.
So turn up the noise.....
 
But sometimes the noise isn't loud enough,
And I feel lonely in a crowd,
An island and I can't swim.
Friends hear the words I say,
But they can't hear what my heart,
Is saying.
A nightmare
Where I want to run or scream but can't.
How did I end up me?

About-the-same-as-yesterday-feeling-slightly-bad-human-being

Samantha

A Mask

Okay. So today's job as to sort out the layout of the blog.
Which I've done. The quote and image at the bottom of the homepage pretty much sum up everything about this blog in two small portions.

This blog is more about me. I've got trouble expressing myself. Serious trouble. I live behind a façade like a mask. The mask that makes people not see me.
This mask is something I put on when I'm out in public. I suppose I'd better explain, that my other major fault.

I suffer from depression. I have done so for about 3 years, and have suffered in silence. I have only recently been opening up to my friends and partner, so I've been hiding for a while. I grew used to putting on his happy, 'I'm fine' exterior to get through my days at school and work without somebody turning around to me and saying "You look down. What's wrong?" Because when I first started having depression, I refused to admit it, even to myself. I just told myself I was having a bad day. But the bad day turned into a bad week. And the bad week turned into a bad month.
Before I knew it, 4 months had passed, and I was forced to accept that it wasn't just a mood which was going to pass.

Shortly after I admitted it to myself, I started to grow aware of myself putting on this façade, this mask of happiness. I will admit. It was good for me. If I was slipping down into what I like to call the darkness, otherwise known as the dark mood swings of depression, this mask would stop me. I would go out and have to put on this mask and it would level me off at whatever level I was at until I was alone again. And....as I had to wear this mask for at least 9 hours each day for various 'public' things, I wasn't too badly off.

This mask is slowly not helping. I've grown so used to putting it on, so used to wearing it, that I, myself in my own head am starting to use it as a disguise, and continue to slip into the darkness beneath my mask. Now that doesn't help. Recently, only if I am actively using the mask as camouflage and interacting with people, does it work. And I'm doing that less, because my depression has been getting worse. Ergo, the need to get my feelings out and be able to express myself, so to this blog.

The really sad part about this mask, apart from the fact that it's slowly not working, is the fact that I've gown used to it, and can use it too well. It now, rather than helps me, hides me. When I most need people to turn around to me and say "What's wrong? Don't lie to me and tell me truth." This mask of mine is the strongest. Nobody can see through it, not even my partner of 2 1/2 years. I can't deal anymore with the fact that I feel alone in my own head.

Below-average-hurting-human-being

Samantha.

Before I Begin

Before I even begin, I want to clarify something.
If you are reading this, and it isn't just crazy old me writing for the hell of it, you can tell me. I won't bite.

I'm a little crazy at times, a little strange, but mostly I'm just me. A young adult female, with an ambition that no longer holds attraction for her, and a clueless internal compass with no idea which way to go.
Oh, and I suffer from depression.

The title of the blog is pretty self explanatory, at least in my mind. 'Devoid Within' describes the emotional state of my own mind on a daily basis.
Something that I've said that sticks in my mind is: "I don't do happy often. Instead I do 'not-so-down' and 'normally-functioning-human-being' rather than happy. I don't look back on my day and say, "That was a successful day because I was happy." It's more of a case of "That was a successful day because I got something minor done and wasn't stuck in my own head without motivation.

A warning to all who may or may not read this, this is my personal thoughts. I am not suicidal, nor do I self harm or abuse substances in the physical reality of this world. In my head is a whole other matter and I'm sure I'll go into that at a later date. But this blog is more for me, rather than anybody else. If it helps you, please let me know. If you relate, please let me know. I am not an expert, but sometimes having somebody who thinks similarly to you is good, and often I tell my life through stories and poems, which there will be a few of on this blog.

Semi-motivated-human-being,
Samantha.