The Depression vacation - Seratonin has never looked so good...

Why am I depressed? I don't know. And I swear to god, if you ask me if it's my "time of the month", I may just have to retire my moral standing on violence. I'll blame it on the depression.

I do know, however, that sometimes it's hard to know how to react when someone you know has  depression. Scenes like that can be illustrated by picturing the expression of the face of a man-beast presented with a crying woman/child. At least, that's always how I imagine it.

It wasn't clear, at first that there was a problem. I can't remember how it started; but I do remember the first time I realised something was wrong. I woke up one day and realised that, through a process of various excuses and good use of procrastination techniques, I had managed to miss an entire week of lectures and tuts. I can't even remember what I did that week. 

Depression is a strange beast. The symptoms are so contrary that it can be excused as something else entirely - if you eat too much, or too little; if you sleep more than usual but wake up feeling tired, or suffer from insomnia; feeling fidgety/can't sit still, or else you move at a slower pace than usual. 

In my case, it's all the first ones, besides the last - fidgety, I am not. Once you know what the problem is, it is easier to deal with. I was ecstatic at the thought that the wet wool blanket constantly dragging me down wasn't just laziness. That the antisocial preference for the sticking my nose in a book, never to emerge; rather than the family friends over for dinner, wasn't the beginnings of agoraphobia. That I didn't have to worry as much about the conflicting feelings of the enjoyment of doing work for subjects such as Mandarin versus the tendency to mope around hating all the deadlines piling up around me like a cracked dam wall.

There was a huge sense of relief that took all the pressure off - it wasn't just me! This is all Seratonin's fault! Huzzah for antidepressants that made me feel like my organs were rattle-shaped and  in the hands of a very enthusiastic baby; but more importantly - that made me feel excited about things towards which I had previously only felt apathy.

There are two things I learnt very quickly, however:

1. Medication can only do so much
2. Food can only do so much 

I haven't really paid much attention to no. 2 though - I'm pretty sure I should now be a major stockholder in Nandos, Lays, Coca-Cola and any company that is selling chocolate products.

My social life is still a mess. I'm sorting out my university work, although it feels a lot like chasing dropped R200 note flailing around in the wind evading capture. My res room is STILL a mess, complete with unpacked boxes, an unmade bed, unknown amounts of takeaway-container debris, shoes and clothes. I still feel like a failure 5 days out of 7 - and the other two days are kinda hazy so I'm not too sure about those. I still feel the need to sleep until 10 (13:00 is my record). I still eat enough to feed a large, over-populated country. I still fall into slumps where I feel hopeless and resigned. I still cling to ridiculously stupid things that only serve to clutter up my life and my room. I still berate my traitorous body and mind for being so weak - for not fighting harder. I still don't know how to fix all the damage I've done to my life and those in it.

Every now and then, I wake up and the sky is overcast; everyone I meet coming down the stairs is hungover; Jacob Zuma did something dumb and the dininghall has run out of Bovril. Sometimes these are the days when I'll wake up feeling like I just had a vitamin B injected into my butt. These are the days where I do all my assignments in a couple of hours. The days when I wake up at 8am feeling refreshed. The days I love everything about myself. The days when I can sit on my window sill and stare at the view for hours in awe of the sky. Whatever the cause, these are the days that save me.

Because I sound like I swallowed five self-help books, I'm going to end off with a link to someone who expressed her depression in a far more satisfying way:
Hyperbole and a Half - Adventures in depression

A quick note (30/09/2012):
I'm far from being an expert - medical or otherwise - on depression; but I do know what it feels like, obviously. If you or a friend are going through this too, feel free to comment below, I'm really interested to know how others handle it...