No, I didn’t forget how much y’all need your neckwear fix, but I’ve been temporarily unable to put together even a simple post. Ralphie Tie o’ the Day is one of my super-fave neckties in my collection, and it is my gift to y’all for being patient with me.
There I was— just rollin’ along down the road o’ my life a week or so ago, when I suddenly fell into a hellish sinkhole of depression. I kid you not. One minute I’m telling Suzanne a ridiculous tall tale which was mostly true, making her laugh wine out of her nose, and— WHOMP! For no apparent reason, I couldn’t find a reason to make it through the next minute. It was an effort to want to breathe. Why does this happen? Just because. It is one of the most pernicious and terrifying mysteries I have to deal with in my bipolar brain. It is a mystery, for example, how I was able to be part of some incredible events last week, while experiencing such mental anguish. (I’ll update you on the magic events tomorrow.) I take my “right” medication as prescribed. I am blessed to have made for myself a relatively drama-free, stress-free day-to-day life. I need for nothing, material or otherwise. But sometimes extreme depression still hits me from out of nowhere like a bigly, balled-up fist. It’s pretty much in charge of me for a time. Sometimes I can write through it, and sometimes I can’t.
Years ago, I gave up trying to figure out the reason extreme depression shows up in my noggin. To live with/through it, I had to learn to not be afraid of its presence, and I had to learn to be patient until it leaves me. It will always go away. Or at least it has always gone away, so far. What scares me is that there will likely come a day when depression decides to stay with me longer than my hope and patience can fortify me. Bipolar depression is not just an illness: it is often a fatal illness. Nobody likes to think about it like that. I certainly don’t. But the suicide numbers speak for themselves. Anyhoo… I’m back at my laptop.
I’ll catch you up on the miraculous happenings I was part of last week, even as depression was my unwelcome companion everywhere I went.
It’s all good, folks.