You’ll hang the hearts black
And dull as the night
You hanged your past and start being
As you in ecstasy

And should I be hugged and tugged down
Through this tiger’s masque?
- Cocteau Twins

I unravel. I sew myself back up. I find a string, dangling, and accidentally [or not] pull at it and find the process renewed. Strings dangle and threads are pulled with needle and patience and old wrinkles in the fabric of me are softened by tears and age and use.

The process, to me, is familiar… but I keep it close when I can, because I am embarrassed to show the repetitive rends and mends to the outside world – both for fear of being judged, and from my own pride. Admitting that something’s wrong acknowledges the issue. Of course, not addressing the problem will never be helpful, because those on the outside have no way to know that behind my smile, I’m hiding pain. Yet admitting the pain is potentially giving away a weakness. Catch-22, around and around, just like my emotions and my thoughts.

The worst of all is conceding that I can’t do as much as I used to do, that my attention and my determination and my concentration and all my other -tions are undermined… by my depression. Too bad that I can’t shun that one. Dun dun.

Sometimes I want to start bashing my head into the wall. It isn’t from frustration [look, another -tion] but more from a desire to control SOME of the pain myself. At least if I smack myself around, I’ll have overrode the annoying phantom ache in my chest/heart/brain. That ache is the hardest thing to explain to people – that it just feels like someone is squeezing my chest, but not in a physical way, exactly. And my heart physically feels heavy. So do my hands, legs, even head sometimes. When I hang my head, it’s because I literally just can’t bear to hold it up anymore, it’s too hard. When it gets that bad, sometimes I just go to sleep for as long as I can stand. [That is, when the insomnia isn't in control.]

But I don’t want to sound complainy, because honestly? I’m working on trying to find solutions, and as hard as it can be sometimes, I still consider myself lucky, and happier than many people probably are. These blog posts serve as explanation of my inner workings, as a history of my struggle, as an update, as an education. I could talk about the joy that the local feral kittens that I’m working to tame brings me, and maybe I will in the next post… but getting this update out first was MOST important, because these things need to be said.