• Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Blog

The Middle Way

~ A journey between extremes

The Middle Way

Monthly Archives: May 2017

The Dark Tunnel

25 Thursday May 2017

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Change, Compassion, Depression, Ego, Emotional Intelligence, Hate, Meditation, Mental Health, Middle Way, Spirituality

≈ Leave a comment


If you or someone close to you has ever experienced depression, then you know it’s not a joke. And I’m not talking about just a bad mood or a bout of the blues here. No, I’m talking about that debilitating 1,000-pound cloak of self-loathing and uselessness that settles down for a long, long stay. So, if you, or someone you love has experienced it, then you know it’s a very real, very powerful thing. You also know that it can destroy anyone, or anything, in its path.

At best, your relationships can suffer. Unfortunately, many of them just fall apart and end. Even the best of friends can only take so much before they have to save themselves. It’s not what they want to do. But since their sense of self-preservation is so much healthier than the sufferer’s, they want to help, but regrettably, end up having to save themselves.

Jobs are, at best, difficult to hold down. Sometimes if you are lucky enough to have a job that doesn’t require you to interact with too many people, you can hide for a while. But, because the lack of motivation gets stacked higher and higher with layers of bland apathy, even the most essential jobs begin to feel menial and pointless. And of course, none of this is good for long-term employment.

Sleep is either a constant friend that offers hours of relief and seclusion, protecting you like a fur-lined leather cloak with outfacing spikes. Or, if you are really cursed, sleep becomes a fleeting joke. A whispered promise of escape that is always just out of reach, waving to you from the far banks of some distant river.

And then there’s always the food problem. For many, there’s really no point to eating since they don’t have anything remotely resembling an appetite anyway, even for their most favorite dishes. And with that, of course, comes the weight loss, the ill-fitting clothes, and the omnipresent questions about your well-being. That is, unless you are the type who gets their comfort from food, and lots of it. For those, a normal serving size doesn’t exist. The only question they have is, “How much you got?” This self-imposed-prison is all around them. It lurks in the daily nourishment we take for granted. For them though, food is like a rogue tiger – large, fierce, powerful, and stealthy. And fighting against it only seems to prolong the inevitable.

And the thing is, this kind of depression doesn’t lift on its own, and it can hit almost out of nowhere. I say almost because I firmly believe that if you dig deep enough, with enough tools, you are bound to find a source… or even many sources.

For whatever reason though, we depressives actually seek to make things worse for ourselves. We begin listening to sad, depressing, or angry music. We keep our feelings to ourselves, our noble goal is to try not to spread our mood to others. Yet, even by those very same actions, we reveal to everyone precisely what our mood is. And then of course, someone reaches out to help… and if we even bother to acknowledge their offer, it’s only to turn it down. But when no one offers, we’re offended and sullen.

Even though there are probably a number of ways to get out of this deep funk, by virtue of our thoughts, actions, and body language, we almost guarantee that the only thing that will help us, sits squarely on our own shoulders. And that, is both a blessing and a curse.

There are ways though. Stay in touch for some posts on solutions, very soon. 

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016

Categories

  • Anxiety
  • Art
  • Book Review
  • Brain Droppings
  • Buddhism
  • Cannabis
  • Change
  • Clowns
  • Comcast
  • Compassion
  • Conspiracies
  • Coronavirus
  • Corruption
  • Dandelion Break
  • Death
  • Democratic Socialism
  • Depression
  • Dingleberries
  • Ego
  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Environment
  • Existential Risk
  • Fatherhood
  • Fear
  • First Amendment
  • FSM
  • Fucking Hannity
  • Grateful Dead
  • Grief
  • Growth
  • Guns
  • Hate
  • Healthcare
  • Heroin
  • Human
  • Indivisible
  • Islam
  • Kids
  • Love
  • Lying (oops, I meant ‘mistruthing’)
  • Making Sense of Guns
  • Male superiority
  • Medical Marijuana
  • Meditation
  • Memorial
  • Mental Health
  • Middle Way
  • Migraines
  • Moscow Mitch
  • Music
  • News
  • Nipples
  • Open mind
  • Pain
  • Patriotism
  • Pledge
  • Poetry
  • Politics
  • Prayer
  • Psychedelics
  • Putin
  • Quantum
  • Race
  • Recovery
  • Revolution
  • Sameness
  • Sex
  • Spirituality
  • Suicide
  • Tax the Church
  • Tech
  • Terrorism
  • Trump-Hole
  • Uncategorized
  • Women
  • Writing
  • Zappa

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy