I think there’s a common misconception that depression is about something or depression is sadness or some form of negativity. It can represent a sadness or a self-loathing, as the first half of my depression did. It sort of circled back on itself and made me dislike myself more because I was so sad and I didn’t know why and I felt like I needed a reason. … It took me a long time to figure out that something was broken on a fundamental level. There was no reason behind it; it was just the way things were.
Read more interview highlights or an excerpt from her book via the link above.
I love her descriptions of depression, because it’s very hard for me to articulate what I deal with. Her experiences are quite different from mine, but some of it is incredibly resonant.
The thing that drives me up a tree is getting people to understand the difference between feeling sad/depressed and having clinical depression. My biggest problem is not feeling sad. It’s feeling nothing. It’s like someone muted all my senses (taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing), or cut off the circuit through which my senses connect to my emotions. Sometimes I feel sad, but it’s sort of distant and pale. I don’t cry. I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep. I don’t want to do anything. Getting myself to do anything is an uphill battle. Meaning anything—like getting out of bed, showering, eating, talking to other people. You’d think there might be some relief in not caring about anything—but there isn’t. It hurts.
Reblogging again to mention that if you’re a fan and you haven’t actually listened to the Fresh Air interview, you should. I hadn’t until last night, and oh my god is it intense. Terry starts asking Allie about her depression, and Allie describes how when she was going through the worst of it she was feeling suicidal, and then she describes how she tried to figure out a way to kill herself that would spare her husband from knowing it was intentional, and Terry asks her what the plan was, and Allie tells her, and then I start crying in the car, and then Allie starts crying in the interview.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is, everyone should read Hyperbole and a Half because man, that shit is hilarious.
This matches my own experience from a few years ago pretty much exactly. I also wrote a book, it was also really really hard, and it was way less glamorous than I had anticipated.
I can’t not see this as an awesome AU version of Hyperbole and a Half. I guess it’s the triangular head-adornment? I think there’s also something about the facial expression.
Anyway, agreed: I’m unable to explain much about it. But I like it. A lot.
