This is new ...

I have only been depressed at one time in my life. Like, for real depressed, not like the Buzzfeed-dedicated-to-food-mishaps depressed. It was a relatively short period of time, from around December 2005 through May 2006, right after my boyfriend of two-and-a-half years broke up with me over the phone fifteen minutes before my 22nd birthday while I was sitting in my car on my parents' driveway. Looking back at it now, it wasn't so much the fact that he broke up with me that turned me into the walking dead, but the idea that I'd planned my entire life around a guy I didn't love and had no idea what else to do. How I managed to graduate from college the following May is completely beyond me, although I did have my wonderful roommate to convince me to leave the dorm room to, you know, go to class and shit. It wasn't so much that I was crying all the time, although I did get through that step after about a week straight of bawling my eyes out*. I just felt numb, which is such a bizarre experience for me. My entire world is filtered through my ability to connect emotionally with it: sunsets, people, wind, etc. And my creativity is directly attributed to my emotional state; if I can't feel, I can't draw, write, or paint. Art is such a huge part of my life, and it was weird, knowing that, if I had been in the right state of mind, it would have killed me to know that I wasn't able to create. But it was just that one time ...

Well, that used to be the case. If you haven't noticed, I haven't been posting as much, and when I do - other than Life with Pets, obvs, which I have had so much fun writing - they've been much more sober. I guess I should have been prepared to take a dip, emotionally, at least, when I just started feeling low for no reason whatsoever. I couldn't explain it. I guess I noticed it back when the recruiter from the National Guard stopped contacting me with updates after I found out that psoriasis was a cause for rejection from the armed forces, but I just chocked it up to disappointment. But I was still in this weird, paralyzed sort of funk that I again attributed to my fear of possibly not getting into the military because of itchy skin. I was feeling tired for no reason, and my period only lasted for two days, which was both a "yay" and an "uh-oh" for me. Then, a few days ago, I got a coupon for a free chicken sandwich at Burger King (with the purchase of a small fry and drink, of course) and walked all the way down there from my house (it's a hefty hike) with $3.50 in quarters, all excited about this sandwich. But when I got there, I found out that, oh, no, the full price for a small fry and drink was $3.93; I was forty-three cents short. The poor cashier, new to the job, had no idea what to do when I started tearing up, so I graciously accepted the coupon back and shuffled out the back door, hoping that no one had seen me. The whole walk back home, I tried to figure out what was wrong with me. It was just a sandwich, for God's sake. And I didn't even care about it once I'd gotten out of the building, but the feeling of sadness lingered. This sort of continued for the next couple of days, during which I forced myself to be happy. I even tried writing a bit and congratulated myself on not being For Real Depressed since I was able to scribble down a few sentences. And then, last night, I kinda broke. 

For reasons I'm not going to get into, I found myself crying ... no, not crying. Sobbing. I was screaming at Three, telling him that I was worthless, incapable of finding a job or selling my writing/art or housecleaning or having babies or loving him properly or cooking or running or having perfect skin or being a good partner/daughter/sister/friend/tenant/etc. It was the most naked I've ever felt, and it had nothing to do with the fact that I was standing there in a towel, having just gotten out of the shower. A deep loathing just seeped out of me, and I couldn't think of anything except that I had no value. Three tried to comfort me to the best of his ability, but in all honesty, there was nothing he could say. He cried with me, and then, for the second time in my life, I felt absolutely nothing. 

It's strange to be numb. Even as I write this, I am having to pause and think of the right words, when I'm usually bursting at the seams, trying to type every thought that comes through. It's not like I'm living in a haze; I see everything clearly and I am oddly very connected to how my body feels right now. I am feeling aches and pains in places that have no business feeling those things (the tops of my feet? what??). But I don't have an emotional attachment to anything, not even when I remember feeling so hopeless but a few scant hours ago. 

So here I am, in this new, yet familiar place. I don't even have the money to see someone about this, so I just have to sit and wonder if I can figure out how to get myself out of it. Maybe? I don't know. What I do know is that all I want to do right now is sleep but can't manage to even take a decent nap. Sorry if this is disjointed; not much about anything is making much sense right now. I think I'm going to go get an iced tea or something and try to work on another Life with Pets sketch? 

* This even occurred when my family took me out to eat for my birthday, in an effort to cheer me up, which hahaha not happenin'. I just sat there, staring at the faux-wood grain table and trying to hold back the deluge of tears that threatened to come bursting out at any moment. The poor server brought me dessert and was all, "Happy birthday!!" and even told me he'd bribed the rest of the staff into not singing to me. And I just sat there some more, this time fiddling with the icing on the shitty carrot cake with my fork. It was ... awkward.