Depression Mirror

I tossed away the soap but stood on the box to look in the mirror. Too many spots on the glass face but the image was not there. In some sort of serene gaze all I could do was stare at empty air. The mirror began to drip with liquid glass that reflected yesterday’s movement.
This is what it is to feel depressed. Not always the sinister drought of levity but a profound emotional emptiness with the emphasis on nothingness. If this mirror could talk, it would walk away to a place of grace where smiles grow naturally like yellow lilies on a moving blue canvas.
If this mirror could walk it would speak of powder blue roses with yellow stems and a sign made of thorns that says “do not pick.”
The amount of money to purchase honey shows that many have ignored the sign to adorn their pots for moments of decaying life. Life that drips away like water down a mirror after a hot shower on a cold night.
The mirror was so accurately accustomed to conversing with the wall that my image was completely ignored, as per chance I wanted to explore the reference window of reflection. Maybe I am not in the mirror after all. Maybe I am standing before the wall as is the custom.
This is what depression feels like today. The wall paper appears to have been worn by the very light reflecting from the mirror. How peculiar. So busy staring at the wall in the mirror that I missed me. So in like mind the mirror only shows the walls eroding errors and not the beautiful being it once was, or perhaps is. So depression is the reflection of a mirror looking for the light that has long gone. Still I see the wall because of the light in the mirror. I see the mirror. I needed the soap to wash the spots. I will use the soap box instead. One day I hope to see me.

Focus Frame Drains Dry

Small walk ahead. Small talk avoided. Shift in schedule takes a shift in consciousness to progress. But I digress to the topic of focus. Focus takes an inordinate amount of energy. To refocus takes some hocus pocus and not fewer than a few days to reclaim the train. Therapy session today is why I am always drained. Drained due to trying to maintain focus on topics that disappear without effort. Like cooking to maintain good health. Like those investment ideas to generate wealth. Like that shower seems so far away so not today. Here in lies the conflict. If the brain wants to stick to a topic, not even I can remove it. Not without effort that was for the next several days. So then I sit in the state of deficit for thoughts to return from break. Thinking drains like wine from rusty lanes. Trains of topics without tickets ride by. I scarcely have time to wave bye. When the thoughts of how to energize actively drain. When the thinking itself is the strain. This is where I find it difficult to maintain. This is where I am today. So I walk away from the rusty mind. Hoping for a sip of the sublime at some time up the road.

Tough to focus

Yesterday Is Tomorrow

Change is a must when not to change is the enemy of better days. Yesterday stares at the future wondering what could be. What should be. Trust that the process out of this mess is, as far as I can guess, truly necessary. It’s scary how many are growing stagnant. Older but not wiser but any means. The seasons seem to predict that constant effects are needed to promote new causes. Just because I feel safe in misery does not mean the risk outweighs the means. The committee speaks in community forums about scores of individuals on disability doing nothing.
Nothing!
Truly the process to help process this mess is better than this. Seriously! No, I am just being facetious but with a word full of tongue in cheek. Let’s speak as those who are in the know. We know that yesterday is not gone. We know tomorrow is already here. We know that if anyone is reluctant to change that it is all the same. I can predict the future. It looks just like yesterday without any change.

The Changes of Change

like a deer waiting for the fall

Off to a mountain type rocky start to the finish of a play. Playing with vibrations that transport swifter than an all terrain vehicle. Getting back to normal is a fallacy for the insecurities of fall leaves that ride the winds. They never see the tree again from the same view, only a few may stay awake long enough to notice anyways.
Why are such unmoving, but living to give by the sea type trees so bountiful? They seem to play every time a breeze visits. So stable. So able to just be. Alive and unmotivated to move beyond what the roots authorize. No surprise that they last past the blast of the winds. This tree that my little i does see has been around to see more than me. Perchance, just a glance and he has seen those who made me and escorted me into the scene to breathe. Same chance that once only this type survives, a time when this very tree will see those who read from me. Those from eternity that earth is yet to see. The deer pants and does a dance for the fall of minds. Hunted like a prey. Sought after like for play. Life and death in the tip of the arrow. Buckets of bullets pierced the winds, vibrating the leaves as the tree shook with pain, while the watcher took aim. Cheers! Another death. Someone earned a trophy for the wall case. More leaves fell. The water grew silent in view of the violent vibration of blood on the ground seeping towards the roots of the trees. Tonight we eat. Tonight we sleep. We sleep with the leaves that fell last fall. We eat with the deer that fell last night. We dream of the trees that witnessed the blood. Let me be like a tree. Let me be like a deer. Let my mind rest from the vibrant run of the vehicle that crosses all terrains.

So Far So Fine

Met with psychologist recently and everything went decently as far as I can find. Went over treatment plan to ban together on how to deal with the masking tape issues that my facial features seem to stick with. To deal with leaving the agora without any phobia of returning home drained from the strain of acting very typical.
To uncover the buried headline from recent times, my friend is doing fine. At least so far. Quite the leap from treatment plans to suicide prevention but this is how the world spins. This is how the nation winds around from experiencing exhausting shopping days to counseling former friends on the dangers of depression while alone and unstable. Now he is able to go to work again. Now he attempts to be normal most likely with the same hope that historic dark days were just a passing fad. He is glad to be alive for now. So am I.
Follow up is so underrated. He and I even debated on the entire system of mental health that was created to assist the imbalance. Much more to explore but the discussion of personal performance perfection is tough to ignore. It is not a perfect system by any means. Yet, why allow such imperfections be the reason for rejection.
I have received wrong orders from fast food establishments and still go out to eat. I have received bad advice from friends and still call those few almost weekly. I am on my 6th or 7th psychiatrist but I still keep going. They are who they are. If imperfections were the reason for rejection why do anything? Yet, the depressed mind has reasons that are very personal. Reasons from the place of pain and not quite fully functional. At least for my friend.
Today however, he is better. Today he is at work. Today I sit at home and write. This is my job. This is my imperfection written with light and letters.
My assignment is to work on masking. My treatment plan is to uncover. This is the first layer. I almost went to get something to eat today. Once my family came home I decided to just stay in my room and avoid them. The hour is later than I realize. I will eat snacks tonight and try again tomorrow when everyone is at work. Small talk is so trying. So useless. So dangerous. I will wait for the moment. I may stay in this corner all night as all day. With a mask that burns to peel away. I feel hungry. Where did this day go?

Neuro-University of Diverse Minds.

The new science of Neuroscience detected from the university a pleasant plethora of diversity in my genetic code. Just some. “When is some better than full?” they asked with a keen grin of a friend. “When it follows Awe!” It took so much restraint not to be exceedingly angry that I was dizzy and felt faint. I presume from experience that most would have cordially gave an audible smile for such clever clerics from the worlds most elite minds. I was definitely devastated that such men in white armor would assume my sense of humor to be only slightly better than a preschooler. All I could reason is how “full” is not even the proper spelling of the horrendous attempt at wit. Be that as it may, I still found time to play around on the playground of my own awe inspiring thoughts.
Today I am a neurodiverse man of a thousand thought experiments between a rocky psychiatrist and a hardened by life psychologist. They are wonderful. Wouldn’t trade either for the other. Great to have a team of trained sane neurotypical agents of change on the dream team. So much to say that always gets forgotten at the time of thought exchange. Time to rearrange the thinking to keep from sinking into comorbid mixed emotions and I keep forgetting something. What is it? How will I know if I remember it?
OCD is a memento to the memory of mental metal rituals that flooded the syndrome of synapses. Only to find out that not one single computer like compulsion would ever emerge. Just a simple splurge for a blanket that I had to get every generation.
From couch cover as a kid to college bed spread, it was the new version of the same feel. Still almost 40 years later, I still twist the ends of similar but newer versions of the same security quilt that I have felt for decades. No! Not a compulsion, but a relaxation of fixed energy programmed to enter into new dimensions of time and space through my blanket. I mean I like how it feels. It is a real calming effect, like coffee that I can’t drink. It’s a real calming cause, like hot steam that I hate feeling. It’s a real calming trap, like a run in the park after dark with shadows dancing near the perimeter outside of my peripheral. It just feels good to me. No reason. No comparison completely. It’s my blanky and I am almost 50, nuerodiversity maybe, Shhh!

ASD Burnout of Me!

Thinking in terms of trains. Not quite the obsession just hear the lesson in each neighborhood since childhood. Sets on the floor. Days to set up and more minutes to explore. The thought to add a few more cars to the track. Research the connection to each tunnel through which each wheel passes for a brief moment beyond the realization of the observer.
Power source seems so innocent. Quick decision to spend more money on more parts to start a new ride. Inside the tunnel each connecting car runs without the need for an engine. The energy of itself carries it with the proverbial caboose. The train keeps running. It just keeps running. The cars no longer strictly connected. They run alone without power, with a power all of their own. The whole set is unplugged and full of tunnels. Still they run. No longer fun. The job of the track to keep all intact has failed miserably. Now they run scattered across basement floors to search and discover for more stops. Crowds make connections but I assume they will all be late. I am sure that I will be as well. I can’t tell where the enigmatic engine is. The tracks are just a puzzle to muzzle the vibration. The energy within is stimming like a steam engine as I approach red. Just lay on the tracks, on the back, on the basement floor. There’s the door but first must muster the many cars to realign into a track design. Must connect the train of thought to the real reason it was bought for such a price. Too tired to engineer anything meaningful. The train runs away again. Hopefully it hits the breaks before it breaks apart of me. Too tired to chase. The steam has morphed into dew. Whew! Now there is time but no steam to do anything but stare at the wet basement floor that I thought about cleaning up all day.

Bipolar Dive

Four seasons of medications that tease the sand like the rain on a sunny day. Oceanic under tow flows perpetually often stealing an unsuspecting visitor to the shoreline. Ignore the education. A brief moment to explore the beautiful depths with scuba gear and a breath. Then the wind of the waves rip the side of the vessel. Gravity exists in such a way. Now the enemy of the surface. The surfers can no longer see my face. Still wondering just how deep this decent into depressions may be. There is definitely not enough air from here to there. Calculate the fear or just enjoy the final view of the underwater tomb stones. I knew it would end this way. So dark and cold. Life swims above. Far above. For the first time I see light vanish. A race for eyes to adjust to the new blindness of old darkness. Others are near but who cares when they are not seen. So it’s a million miles to the next breath. It’s a millisecond before I heard my own muffled sound. Counting down to when there is one left. Shhh! Thoughts seem to make an echo. Echo
seems to make another thought. The pressure is almost unbearable. The end is just above the waves. The bottom has never been seen. The life in the jacket has become straight. The boat rocks. It’s almost my turn to fall in.

Illness and Stillness

Stillness spoke so sweetly that even serenity had to blush as she graced by. Yet, Illness was extremely intolerable to the softly sung lullaby that was brooding on the silver air waves. Illness decided that this noise was such a nuisance that he would toss the very alarmed clock out of the window. The neighbors heard the crashing of the glass as it broke into hundreds of small weapons of war. They turned over and went back to sleep. Illness maintained the resolve to solve the riddle of the universe which only those with such thoughts even know exist. The new breeze was breaking into the open window, without a sound, and was touching down upon the face of Illness. This is a trick to make me sick said Illness and he took a thought to find some paper and tape. Better hurry before the flashing of lights, the flashing that lights the night arrive for a ride. Unwittingly this time, the crime would go unnoticed as the neighborhood grew increasingly immune to the immensity of his sickness.
Then, the glass that once stood as guard of the wind broke the skin against the wrist. This pain, this bliss, this blood. This time, this need, this help must speedily be on its way. Just sit and wait. The lights must be flashing soon. They heard the weapons of glass consume my imagination. They that live nearby, sometimes say Hi, must be drawing nigh.
The silence.
Stillness now such a great delight but the fight to keep awake. The flight, of the lights, of the night, have not come. Stillness still sings this lullaby. Same song but new tune. Same cut but new wound.
This time it’s not a cry for help. This time I cry for help. Illness began to sing a song. Overweight with sorrow, this is already tomorrow, no ones heart to borrow. The breeze becomes slightly more violent. The wind speaks in a mocking movement as the papers are being rearranged on the desk. The intruder vanished so suddenly and so gracefully that even serenity would blush as she returned home. Would serenity use her phone? Illness remains in the zone. Stillness came much closer to home. Too late to practice this tune. Too late to speak to the moon.
Illness had the answer to the universe. Stillness now sings it to the multiverse. It’s getting still, it’s getting dark. The neighborhood goes to still the wind. Serenity sleeps with stillness again.
Lights are flashing…

New Psychiatrist (again)

Uncertainty is for certain. What never changes is that things change. Same questions asked of me, again, this time with a new voice. Suppose the last notes were untrustworthy. Suppose the last notes were private. This Doctor needs to hear for herself rather than trust the several before her who asked the same exact, the same exact questions.
Not very optimistic that this was the last initial interview. Want to review soon, you know, just in case things are seen differently, this time around. Like, am I still OCD? Or Manically depressed or just obsessed with not knowing the proper diagnosis, that seemingly changes as much as a mood of a bipolar friend. Wait, I have no friends, that was an allusion to the illusion that people actually care for more than themselves.
Next month, another call to see if the formal medication, formerly prescribed, now described to me again, as a solution. This time the bottles will have the same name, new dose, with a new name. Wait, does it matter who prescribed the medication initially? Were they wrong? Must accept the diagnosis is the mantra of more than a few. What is it this time?
The trail of prescribed labels tells a fable of trouble in the past. They also gather in the morning and speak of stable days that pass away without much thought. I can not remember when last night ended, but the bottle is open. I tried to sleep, so I think. The bottle is open. So I tried to stop thinking, or so I think.
Better to think in weeks and not days. Better to eat something, anything. When was the last glass of water? Must have been last week. The week I found the open pill bottle. It was a week ago, just like it was yesterday. I slept last week, just like it was last night. I have an appointment tomorrow. I hope to arrive sometime next week.