Message in a bottle...a really long one....

depression is really an awful illness. i mean at least mine is. i'm sure others agree but i know that it's isnt' exactly the same for all of us. yesterday was really hard. i think generally mondays are hard and yesterday was one of those mondays. at the end of the day though i discovered something. something new for me and that is that i can't let myself get too hungry. i remember once hearing someone talk about alcoholics anonymous and how you should never let yourself get too hungry and too tired and too something...can't recall the third...but that came to mind when i finally got home after work yesterday and collapsed on my bed and wept a little. just enough tears to satisfy the need to cry and then snap back into control mode. i had been beating back depression all day so i needed some release. by fighting back i mean it was one of those days when you're constantly saying "ack mondays!" and "i'm feeling a little under the weather" and so on, stuff that you feel is common enough to explain what probably is not apparent to anyone anyway, but i just feel compelled to apologize for myself. for the blankness that comes with depression- taking too long to respond or memory slow to respond - that kind of thing - the dull gray of the gray matter...i've been thinking about where i am with my depression and anxiety and agoraphobia. how did i get this way. i mean i've talked to therapists before and done the reading and interpreting and applying and sorting and memories and self examinations and lists and tracking and more sorting and understanding and then ultimately falling right back into the same track of depression - albeit with a new and better understanding. today i'm thinking from that place and i'm trying to understand more deeply where this all came from. rather than think about the details of what is happening to me currently, i wanted to think more about why i am like i am. as i think i mentioned earlier, i realized yesterday that i had let myself get too hungry. the reason i realized this was because after i ate, i suddenly didn't feel as depressed anymore. i had my energy back and i felt the grip let me go. i mean i know what food does in the brain, but this was not a remedy feeling, it was a realization that as i get older my body is reacting differently to what happens when i get depressed. it was a new tool for my depression tool belt and now i know to not get too hungry. so back to why i am like i am. i am a person of color - that's important to this - i am 57 years old. i loved my dad but i don't think he loved me more than was necessary for him not to be uncomfortable with him not loving me as much as my brother. i get it - don't like it - but i get it. to understand my family dynamics is difficult but it goes something like this: i come from a large family (3 boys, 5 girls, i was number 5, second boy). we were raised on a migrant camp just outside a small town. i don't remember myself speaking english fluently until i was 10ish or so. i straddled three worlds in my early life. i was not white and the town didn't like my type, i thrived on the migrant camp though but had to leave it every day for the confusing and often mean world in the town and at the school. the other world i lived in was that i was gay. i was a gay kid from the day i was born i was and am gay. i thought i wanted to be a girl but i was a boy. i "thought" i wanted to be a girl but it turns out that's not really true. i just wanted to be myself is what was really true and what myself was something i had to invent, define and animate all by myself. i was utterly alone. a stupid, strong, creative, imaginative, resilient, scared, ashamed, bad, bad, boy who nobody wanted and people wanted to beat on and kiss on, and put things in me, and it was up to me to decide what i was going to be - and it was not like them. so i cut myself off from everyone and i started being me. all alone but safe. this is how my world started to take shape and lose shape at the same time. i found books, and music and art and artists and i built that little soldier warrior scholar child ****** into what i am today. so the source of my isolation, of my sickness, is the things i did to survive. the things I learned are the things that separated me…my depression/anxiety/agoraphobia tool belt has in it a picture of me as little boy. it's a picture of me ready to enter a church for my first communion. i love that picture because when i look at it i can see that i was really happy. i was happy not because i was about to receive christ (which was fine but he'd never really done anything for me especially when i called for him during my darkest times at that age...), the reason i was so happy in that picture is because i had on the coolest clothes i had ever worn. it was a little black suit that was purchased just for me - not a hand me down - with a red and black stripped tie. it was the ultimate super hero costume for my 8 year old self. no one could argue that i belonged to the real world right then and that picture captured that moment. others just see a pic of a kid in a suit, but i see much more....i see my struggle come to triumph in that moment. at that age, i had already been beaten up for being too feminine, i had already had sex with an adult man, i had already been discriminated against in ways that i understood were because of perception of what i was. i already knew i was a pariah. it's amazing to me what i've survived and what i've managed to become regardless. but it's too hard to live like this. i know my life will end in the next couple of years but i'm not sure when. i recently lost my sister and i know my mom and family can't handle another loss so i will wait. maybe something good will happen. maybe i'll fall in love or maybe i'll find someone who will tell me the thing i need to hear or know but i can’t imagine what it is...i don't know i just know that if it all adds up to coming home and crying and not knowing what new thing is working to beat me down or struggling to do the most basic stuff...then what can i know that could possibly make this better...it is and has been a battle and i'm tired. i'll wait as usual until others have what they need. i'll wait until my mom passes. i'll wait until it's my turn but for now i'll wait. i’m off to work now. and as usual i feel better having written this….thanks to anyone who read this. i wish you the best and wish i could do something special for you...

Inspiring.
Noble. You've often waited, yes? What price have you paid?

It's not often a story moves me, so removed empathically that I am from the world around me.

But yours stirred something in me. Maybe you should write more? Your imagery is powerful... I'm glad you feel better having gotten all that out. I read all of it!

I can try and answer by saying that I'm the sum of my experiences. Serving others is how I've made sense of my life. Turn the other cheek is probably the thing that made the most sense to me in church. There were times when I thought that it was a vehicle for my cowardice, and maybe it was sometimes, but I came to understand that I just don't like to hurt people no matter what. So I have taken on a life of service. It's not hard for me to say I'll wait until others have what they need. I know when the time will be right for me. I still believe I am the sum of my experiences. Depression creates lots of bad experiences for me that I can't fully control. However I can create good experiences that I can control and for me those are based on doing for others. Thanks for reading my ramblings and for responding. I hope you are well and that you're doing ok. I send you a big hug.

Oh bugbear, when you say you are so removed from the world I feel it down to my core. The world can feel so far away. I know. I hope you are well and thank you for reading my writing. It's surprising how much it helps my day. Except for talking to people behind closed doors (at many dollars an hour), I've never expressed many of these things openly. It really helps me. I'm so glad I found this little island of safety. Thank you again and truly, I hope you are well. Big hugs.