Embellished Truth & Polite Fiction

Some days I get up and I just feel empty. Purposeless, useless, tired, aimless. I don’t know what to do with myself. This is one of the many ways that depression can affect a person.

I woke up this morning to my 3 year old (Joella – aka Jo, Joey, JoJo, pain in the butt…) having a tantrum because her shows were not being turned on. This was not the fault of the people trying to appease her, but rather she got up a bit earlier than they begin. (Thanks, Nickelodeon, for waiting until 8am to start Nick Jr shows.) So Joey proceeded to scream and whine just as my husband began preparing to leave for work.

Not my favorite way to wake up.

Still, I didn’t feel all that bad, necessarily. It was just annoying.

I laid there a bit longer and contemplated getting out of bed, eventually deciding to skip the shower and just throw on some clothes and go make coffee, cleverly slipping downstairs just moments before 8am and serving Joey her cereal.

Most days, I go to the kitchen, get some breakfast and coffee, eat, take my coffee up to the office and sit at my computer to drink it while I surf the web and make my plan for the day.

Then there’s days like today. I ate my breakfast, I got my coffee, I sat down at my computer… the internet seems to have nothing to offer me today. I don’t have anything to say on twitter. I don’t know what I want to do when the coffee runs out or even while I drink it for that matter.. I feel empty.

I’m going to try to describe to you what dissociation feels like. (Dissociation: is a partial or complete disruption of the normal integration of a person’s conscious or psychological functioning.) Many people liken it to a feeling of being ‘out of body’ or beside yourself – watching yourself from the outside. I don’t feel it like that. For me it’s more like a feeling of not existing. I usually explain it more as being a ‘lights are on, but nobody’s home’ kind of feeling. I don’t really feel far away, but rather as if I’m not there at all. I’m not anywhere. I don’t exist.

It is a very odd feeling.. even more so when you are aware of it.

I have two pieces of art that I am currently working on.

They’re sitting here in the office, waiting to be finished. Normally, I would putz around online, and then get to work on some writing, editing, or art work. But today, I’m not feeling it. I look at those works in progress and I don’t know what to do with them. Much like the portion of the painting where my daughter will be, I feel like I’m simply a missing part of the picture of my life. I’m just not there.

I know this feeling won’t last. It is not permanent. I know that at some point today, I will reconnect with some part of myself and we will get up and move on from the stagnant state. But in the meantime, I will sit in this foggy abyss and feel as if time is standing still despite the hours passing by, and wonder what to fill that empty part of the picture with.

After lunch was group session. Carl hadn’t been to one for a while, but he still remembered exactly what they were and what they entailed. He walked into the room with it’s shiny linoleum flooring and more hard plastic chairs. The cold blue seats were arranged in a circle in the center of the room and the other patients shuffled about, choosing their seats.

Carl vaguely recognized a few of the faces in the room but could not remember any names. They all seemed to recognize him though. He got a variety of reactions as each person’s eyes fell upon him. Some sneered. Some gave a weak smile of recognition. And others reacted with what seemed like fear before looking quickly away.

He wasn’t sure how to process all this. Should he chalk it up to being in a room full of crazy people? Or should he wonder at how these various reactions reflected upon him? Carl stepped tentatively into the circle and took a seat in one of the chairs. Straight across from him sat a large old woman with messy gray hair that was pulled into a knot at the back of her head. The stray locks of hair spread out like Medusa’s snakes from all angles around her head and her pale blue eyes stared at him with an emptiness he’d never seen. Carl wondered for a moment if she was even alive.

A tall, thin black man sat two seats to her left. He looked like any other normal person you might see on the street. Looking at him told Carl nothing of his mental state. Carl found these people most disturbing. He felt more comfortable with those who actually looked insane. It was as if they came with a warning label – you could see them coming. But the quiet normal looking ones – they were usually the ones who had problems with paranoia and, if you were really unlucky, violent anger and rage.

Beside the black man was and older man. Carl imagined he might be some wealthy business man that had gone over the deep end due to the strain and stress of his career. Perhaps he had been pulled off the roof of a building just before jumping.

The other side of the circle was empty, as of yet. Carl assumed the therapist would sit in one of the seats there. He was right. A young woman, who looked no older than 25, walked over to the chair and sat down. Her brown pencil skirt, leather pumps, and white coat gave her away. She set the clipboard on her lap and pulled her red curls into a pony tail. Carl could see her badge now. “Dr. Young”, it suited her just fine.

Dr. Young flipped through a few pages on her clip board and then began to clear her throat when suddenly Sara came wandering in, humming a light tune. Her eyes didn’t even seem to care to look at the group at all until she reached the circle of chairs and then she stopped. She stood, silent, and looked straight at Carl. A quirky half smile lit up her face and she sauntered over and took the seat beside him, her eyes never leaving his face.

“Good afternoon, Sara.” Dr. Young said with a smile. “How are you today?”

“Still crazy, Dr. Young.” Sara answered with a wink. Dr. Young laughed softly and turned her eyes back to her papers. She let out a small sigh and addressed the group with her gaze.

“Looks like everyone is here.” she announced. “Shall we get started?”

Carl stared at his feet. He hated those hospital slippers and wished again for his socks. He frowned in dismay as he remembered the apparent hallucination from that morning. His feet itched.

“Let’s go ahead and introduce ourselves since we have a newcomer this week.” Dr. Young began. Carl looked around at the group again. He assumed he was the newcomer since the only one in the room he knew was Sara. “Joe, let’s start with you..”

The Jumper stood up and quickly glanced around the circle. “I’m Joe.” he said in a soft nervous voice and sat down just as quickly. Mr. Normal stood up next and glanced around the circle calmly.

“I’m Xavier.” he said, and then lowered his lanky body back to the plastic chair. Next was Medusa. She stood to introduce herself and looked straight at Carl with her big round eyes as she fiddled with her gown.

“Martha.” she said, a bit more loudly than necessary. It sounded more like she was scolding a child than introducing herself.

“I’m Carl.” he said without standing. He simply raised a hand in a greeting that was met with only blank stares.

“Sara.” the woman beside him said in her soft lovely voice. Medusa smiled almost longingly at the sound.

“Alright then. Shall we get started?” Dr. Young looked down at her clipboard again for a moment and then looked across the circle to Xavier. “Xavier, since this is your first time with us, why don’t you share a little about yourself.”

Carl found himself somewhat dumbstruck. He had no real recollection of being in this room with this group. He had assumed that he was the newcomer here. How many times had he been here over the past 3 weeks? What had he shared here? How had he behaved. He barely heard anything Xavier said as his thoughts began bouncing around in his head like ping pong balls in a tin box.

The group therapy session went smoothly. There was sharing of how everyone’s week had been, ideas on better coping skills were mentioned, and then Dr. Young coached them through some meditation and relaxation. Well, most of them anyway. Medusa kept shouting random words out every time another step in the process was given. This usually resulted in giggles erupting through the entire group. Dr. Young was, overall, unruffled. But Carl sensed she was a bit frustrated. Still, he supposed it was something she had to accept as part of her job… working with crazy people.