De-press

To Push Down. To Keep Under.

There is Nothing Wrong with You, I Keep Telling Myself.

It gets harder the more meta my mind gets. I am squirrelly - meditation is getting harder, and my relationships seem to be declining. I am seeing the results of long-term overwork and under play. I feel, when I feel at all, sadness and disconnection, from my body and heart. Today I realized part of it is hormonal cycle, and there was a tremendous relief - I could remove from list of things potentially Really Wrong With Me the idea that I am now totally nuts. Instead I can just be pretty sad, partially angry but also premenstrual.

Been back to reading Buddhist books on depression, which mostly help. Again and Again, I face my Attachment to sadness, my need to stay on the back of myself for the long rides that justify my feelings, so often deprived from me in childhood, and now mine to revisit again and again. Only the sorts of things that appear on videotape - repeats - are what push everything else down. In favor of reliving old trauma, I overlook new chances in every moment, mostly, most importantly, curiousity. Watch what this person does. Don't expect you know. Because
you don't. Especially if it is me I am watching.

Writing about it helps. So long as I stay out of nitty details which turn into lists and further justification. Certainly exercise helps. Ironically, so does lots of sleep. A very dear and old friend is suffering currently from some really seriously relived trauma, much more acute than my current experience, and a doctor told her something she had never heard: "Maybe you *need* to be sleeping 12 hours a day. You are wearing yourself out. You are tired.".
There are limits, of course, but sometimes we just need rest.

So hard to stay in the unsettled. I am apt to guess and pretend curiousity when instead I am persecuting myself rabidly. Every possible thing I could be compassionate about becomes either a cure, a cause or a disposable emotional refuse. Slowing down helps, of course. I feel as if I am underwater, watching everyone and myself. Luckily I was cried out by the time I had to go to work this morning.

I have gotten through this before. I will do it this time. That is the only part of the video worth watching again - the success story bit. No pressure, of course, lest I get stuck here longer competing with myself over the last time I got myself out. Just a quiet, silent viewing when I need a little booster.