Here's a Blog Post

Depression is a motherfucker.

It saps your drive, energy and will to live. It takes away your future and makes you feel hopeless and unmoored. You don’t know where you’re headed so you don’t know how or what to prepare and you’re too tired to prepare for anything or make plans or accept invitations or explore opportunities anyway. It’s a funk indeed.

I’m depressed. I have it. Or I am it. Or I suffer from it or live with it or am learning to survive it. I’m not sure of the correct terminology. But as they say and sing, there’s a memory around every corner and with each memory comes heartache and pain. A lot of pain.

In my case, I’m reeling from the changes that come with an unexpected breakup that wasn’t my choosing and took away my family, home and identity. I played a role – I helped bring about the end, albeit unintentionally – but still, I had no control of the outcome or the process. Nothing’s perfect and that included my relationship with my partner but the sudden removal of her and the kids from my life has been worse than I could have imagined. No one has cancer or has been murdered, I keep telling myself as if that will ease the pain, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t get out of bed. I don’t care if I eat. I don’t make plans or do anything, even things I need to do like update my resume or figure out my next step. It hurts to look at pictures and hear songs and take certain shortcuts and drive on certain roads.

I’m clinging to the thought that this is temporary, that it’s a transitory phase just before something positive happens again. I’m distracting myself by playing Pool Practice and getting lost in the Land of Lord Zuckerberg (aka Facebook) on the new laptop that my parents and sister gave me for my birthday a few weeks ago. I hang out with friends occasionally but not often because that requires energy, teeth-brushing and smiling. I’m not young anymore as at other times in my life when sudden or major changes resulted in upheaval. This time it feels like there’s not a lot of time left for the next phase or incarnation or life event or however you describe what comes next to arrive and settle in.

Add to this anxiety, loneliness, fear (no home or health care), regret, frustration and financial instability and sprinkle some news about the Orange Asshole and the divided states of America on top and you’ve got where I’m at right now. I know there are others having a bad or worse time but that doesn’t heal my wounds. The fact that I could have prevented some of this doesn’t stop me from feeling betrayed and hurt by the results.

I’m not sure why I’m writing this. “What’s the Diehl?” needs fresh content, to be sure, and I haven’t been able to sit down and write about issues or politics or current events because when I come back from my crappy, low-wage job as a service worker, all I want to do is flop onto my bed and pull a blanket over my head. (Did I mention that I’m fortunate to have two fantastic friends who’ve enabled me to escape homelessness by living in their basement rent-free and indefinitely?) I resist doing anything that might lift me out of the place I’m in. No energy to walk upstairs and outside, let alone hit a gym. Yes, I desperately need a better, different job but I’ll get to that tomorrow. There are 20 things I need to do but I’ll get to them later. For now, here’s a blog post.

Life is full of highs and lows, I know. I’ve had some remarkable experiences and come in contact with some really special people. I’ve seen breathtaking beauty. I’ve made babies laugh. I’ve eaten jumbo shrimp while sitting on Dolley Madison’s sofa in the White House as the President of the United States stood nearby. (Don’t worry, I was invited.) I’ve ziplined and danced and hugged and won shit. I’ve stroked purring cats on my lap and hiked through the woods and held hands with the love of my life.

There have been bad times too, of course. I hope this is just one more of them and not the way things are going to be from now on because depression is a motherfucker.