Who I used to be

Facebook has a feature entitled ‘Memories’ which allows you to see all the posts you’ve made on your timeline for that day – going back about 10 years.

Today was apparently a very busy one for me in the early 2010’s.  I had several posts from 2012/13, before my ‘breakdown’, when I attempted my suicide and later my ‘ECT’ (electro-shock therapy) – from a time when I felt more like ‘me’.

‘Me’ being an idealized memory of myself.  When I could read pay attention; when I could wax eloquent and improvise grand stories off the top of my head.  A version of myself that would write long – pages long – rants about deeply philosophical, and socially relevant, topics that charmed and impressed most anyone who read them.  This was a ‘Me’ who walked and talked with confidence, and whom people flocked around because of that.

Now … now I feel like that pathetic, middle-aged man, sitting at home in his high school jersey and reminiscing of his football days.  I have been so rudderless the last decade … the depression and physical pain keep me pretty limited in anything I do and so all I can do is be reminded of how far I have fallen and how little reason there is to go on.

I wish I knew how to get me back.  Or, at least, get that confidence back, because where I am now – I just feel empty.

The depression comes in waves, it’s always there but I get hills and valleys every three months or thereabout – I’m in the midst of one now, the downward slope of that valley, I believe, which means I have a few really shitty weeks more months ahead of me.  If I’m here, at this point in my decline, already – I fear it’s going to be a sharp one.