Crutch
I like to drink my brandy mainly straight,
A rock or two to cool it, a small glass,
No snifter, I don’t need to demonstrate
By swirling and sniffing that I have class.
I think I drink less when I drink it straight.
To weaken it with cola or ginger ale
Tends to make me underestimate
How much alcohol I will inhale.
I wonder, what with all the medication
I’m taking, why I need another crutch.
I’m far beyond the help of education.
I drink because I drink, and I drink too much.
Suffering is served straight without a mixer.
Is that why I dilute it with elixir?
This morning I have that disgruntled feeling that no matter what I do it will be unfulfilling and trivial. I’ve already deleted most of what I’d written in today’s post that reason. It’s a feeling of restlessness, of casting about for the next thing, then discarding it for lack of interest; of taking up a task only to quit halfway because it seems pointless.
This is a state I have recorded before in these pages, which often presages an ascent out of melancholy, for which I obviously hope. That I can hope puts me at no worse than three kilorats. At four one begins to lose hope; at seven all hope is a cruel joke; at nine the only hope, which is not hope, is a hope for death.
As I have said before, I have never had a major depression that sputtered so in recovery. Part of the reason is medication. When my pain management doctor puts me on oral narcotics I find them hard to resist, as being out of pain is wonderful. Nothing else has ever worked for me. But if I go off them my mood plummets. This has happened twice in these seven months, and I’ve sworn never to take them again for that reason, as physical pain is infinitely preferable to emotional pain, in my estimation. But I’m human, and as the poem above explores, open to temptation. Anything that may temporarily improve my mood, or ameliorate my physical pain, is hard to resist.
This writing about myself is tedious. But it is a discipline in my depression, and however trivial I regard it, it is not nothing. While occupied with my post I don’t hear the voices arguing in my head and I don’t have the space to hate myself.
At three kilorats,
C. E. Chaffin
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I like reading your words, it's like reading what i'd like to write, but haven't the talent, or will power, or whatever.
ReplyDeleteI know saying this is no help, and if you are on a down slope right now, well, then you won't give a shit if i say it or not, it'll mean nothing in your scope of things.
but,
'i know how you feel'
oh well, it's been good visiting, and maybe i'll do so again.
kinda hope one it sorts itself out...for all of us.
However tedious it may be to write about it, writing about your depression is a form of therapy, I think. I mean, as long as you can write about, regardless of tedioius you might deem that expression, you're still expressing rather than repressing, and that's a good thing.
ReplyDeleteIt's when folks go all silent and turn inward and shut down and stop getting out of bed and stop putting one foot in front of the other and stop bathing and brushing their teeth and changing their clothes...that's when depression scares the hell out of me.
Dead on the inside. It's such an awful, non-feeling.
So, keep on writing.
And walking, dammit! (grin)
I ran for 50 minutes today and I swear, it was the best 50 minutes of my day.
Wow. A few glitches there. I think it still makes sense though, no? I've been omitting words all day in my writing. Weird. The other day, I couldn't pronounce the word "abdomen." It really freaked me out. I felt brain damaged.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the ommissions. I think an "it" is missing. And a "how".
LKD--aren't you a perfectionist! No wonder you suffer from depression.
ReplyDelete