Getting to Why I Started This

     

    So when I started this blog, I had intended to use it to help me get to living, instead of constantly running around just trying to keep up with life. But I have not wanted to see and deal with why I am constantly running. I have been suffering from depression since I was 8 and still do.  I have been so resistant to accepting this because I have felt this way for so long that it just seems normal, like it's just me. That, I have learned, is called dysthymia; one who suffers from chronic low levels of depression for so long that they think it is actually an aspect of their personality.

      But the issue has been and still continues to be a difficult aspect of this. I have acted this way for almost as long as I can remember and  now, I get very angry and defensive about aspects of depression that I think are "just me," such as liking to sleep a lot.

     It is hard for me to see myself as chronically depressed because I have a full time job where I am fairly successful and am a leader. Each day, I accomplish many things. In other words, I don't sit around all day unable to function, which is how I have always viewed depressed people.

      Yet if I look at a list of signs of depression, I exhibit all of them to some degree or another.  My husband has let me know our whole relationship that there has always been something below the surface, an unhappiness and unwillingness to want to go out and experience new things.

   Honestly, I am terrified of this diagnosis. I do not like the term "mental illness" and would rather run away from it all. But I am going to loose everything soon if I don't deal with it.