This is a Really Real Mental Health Post.

I feel like my writing fell off the face of the earth.

It was an every day thing for me. Every event was one more topic to write about. I felt like a piece of me was missing if I didn’t sit down and knock out a post each day.

And overnight my interest waned.

But writing is an important part of who I am and this is just a symptom of my depression. Allowing myself to avoid putting fingers to keys is one more way I’m allowing the depression to win.

I saw my psychiatrist today. I asked her if we could increase my Lamictal.  Last time it helped.

She handed me a lab slip.

But I don’t want to wait for a stupid blood test. I want to feel better now. I want to feel better a week ago, two weeks ago, maybe it’s been a month or longer.

This constant, although minimal, depression is draining. I spend part of my days feeling like I’m crawling through quicksand. I’m not quite being sucked under, I’m maybe not in danger, but it feels like I could be.

I’m still doing what has to be done but I also spend time being resentful. There’s a quiet voice in the back of my head asking why I’m the only one doing the things that I normally want to the only one doing. (Well now, that sentence was as clear as mud, but it made sense to me.)

Those things that need doing seem like so much work right now.

But the same quiet voice keeps me from asking for help.

The same quiet voice makes me want to pick fights.

It makes me angry over things that I would normally shrug off.

But I know that quiet voice is the voice of depression. It’s the same voice that keeps me from writing.

The same voice that makes me want to crawl in bed because nothing seems interesting and the bed just seems so comfortable. Even though all I do is stare at the image of the clock projected onto the ceiling.  I watch and wait for the minutes to change.

Sometimes minutes turn into hours.

Sometimes hours turn into days.  Days without writing.

But once I put my fingers to keys again, I see that I still have a lot to say.

I can’t let this depression take my words, take my voice, take this part of me.

It’s too important that I speak my story and share my truth.

It’s too important that I keep shining a light into all the dark spaces.