Armed but scarred

A missed significant but not essential appointment, an unattended messy kitchen, a mountain of laundry, the look in the faces of a couple of the womanchild's friends when they met me for the first time last night, an unreturned phone call and the realization that once again, I've messed up the checkbook have brought to surface all those old, bad feelings that I'll never escape being a screw up. This is one of the things that I hate about depression. It wasn't a perfect day. I messed up a few things which makes it a perfectly normal day. It really wasn't a bad day. Battling my depression demon though means that an otherwise okay day isn't something I just let slide. Every little mistake, every accident, every little thing that didn't just hit the mark exactly right will pop unbidden into my head accompanied by a reproachful voice that says, "Here's the proof. See, you just can't cut it. You're just not good enough, and you never will be."

The choice here is either to believe that voice and accept a life of misery and disappointment or fight it. Well, I've chosen to fight, but I'm battle weary. I get tired of the mental checklist of emotional warning signs I have to keep for every day. I get tired of giving myself positive affirmations that feel phony so often. I get tired of telling my negative self to shut the fuck up. It would be all too easy just to give up, go completely mute, and sit in both literal and figurative darkness until life does cave in around me.

That's not me though. If I go down, I will go down fighting.

depression