Statistically, January is the most depressing month of the year, and for me, this is no exception.

This year especially.

 

I don’t think there’s been a day in the past few weeks I haven’t cried either from my depression and anxiety, stress in general, or sheer loneliness. Sometimes it’s even an explosive combination of all. Most of the time it happens while laying in bed either as I’m trying to fall asleep or attempting to drag my apathetic body out of bed in the mornings.

I’m living in that gray area again, teetering between existing and wanting desperately to not feel things as deeply and passionately as I do. It’s the curse of all creatives. Suicide is not an option but it dances around in my head more often than I’d like to admit.

 

The overthinking and downward spirals easily pull me in when I am like this and it’s hard to escape their never-ending call to tango in the abyss.

 

The simplest tasks seem daunting and yet I keep going, somehow. Routine helps somewhat, but it also ramps up my anxiety.

Most nights I come home from work and lay on my couch in the dark — no tv or music, just silence. I’ll lay there for hours, ignoring texts, messages, and phone calls until it’s time to go to bed. Then once I’m in my room, the destructive thoughts from my depression and anxiety begin their attack.

Right now I’m laying in my bed… it’s 4 am and I’m listening to the rain come down hard outside. In the distance, a train goes by with its loud rumbling. This is what it feels like in my head most of the time these days.

I can’t help but think how much I hate winter, with its snow and cold temperatures, and how this rain and warm up is temporary and everything is going to freeze again. It reminds me of something I wrote around this time last year — “It’s 45 and overcast. Like my heart.”

 

I know I have things to do, important things, but sometimes I just want to sit back and watch it all crumble and burn to the ground.

 

My logical brain knows these feelings are temporary, however, that brain resides in a very emotional body that’s drowning in an overwhelming black sea of depression and anxiety. I never learned to swim, I am merely treading water at this point, trying my best to stay afloat.

I told my closest friends the other night that I feel I am on the verge of something, but whether it’s a breakthrough or breakdown, I’m not sure.

The rain is beating down outside and the tears have begun their descent once again.

January, you are not my friend, I’m glad you’re almost over.

 

---