Tuesday, September 18, 2012

"Should I be worried?"

Still sad, and somewhat tired in spite of sleep seeming to go well.

Apparently it shows because that (the title) is the question I today from my mother.  I'm of two minds regarding how to answer that.  The answer that I did give assumes relativity,  Should I be worried in a way that I have not been worried these past 10+ years you've been having treatement resistant/untreated depression?  In that case, no.  Not a bit.

I been through fucktons worse than this.

She's seen me go through things like this and worse for the past ten years.  There's nothing particularly new or special about me and sad and tired being in the same place at the same time.  The same could be said of me and apathy, me and dread, me and anxiety, me and lack of energy, me and any number of bad things.

If she wasn't worried about me last week, last month, last year, last decade, then there's no cause for worry now.

On the other hand, what if I didn't assume relativity?

Should she be worried?  Quite possibly.  I have a fucking mental illness called depression that, for much of my life, definitely more than a third, perhaps more than half, maybe even the vast majority, has refused to go away.  Every treatment we've tried has failed. It's kept me largely isolated, it's kept me from doing the things I wanted to do and made my life a series of broken dreams, most of them didn't even make it to the "attempt to start" phase before the depression smothered them.

I've had this illness for so long that I don't even remember what I was like without it.  I don't have a firm grasp on the things that made me happy before depression set in, I don't remember them.  Those diagnostic questions they ask, "for the past two weeks have you found it difficult to enjoy things you used to enjoy," when did I used to enjoy?  Don't remember that.

Except things that last for but a moment and then are gone.  If I can get lost in the moment then emotions might flow, but once the moment ends any positive emotions do too.

So should she be worried?  I don't know.  I kind of think that there might be cause for concern in there somewhere.

Not that I would have said yes.  Her worrying would improve what?  There's no benefit to me, just something to weigh her down.  So regardless of whether or not she should worry, I'd prefer she didn't.  I see no benefit in making others feel worse.

1 comment:

  1. Do you think that maybe she's looking for a concrete Thing to try and help? Sometimes we say "Should I be worried?" when we mean "Am worried. Can I help?"

    Which has its own set of dances and problems, certainly.

    Might be worth some very direct questions and statements to see whether she does want to get involved in care and help, or is just expressing platitudes because she's floundering.

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