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...

The Top 5 WORST things to say to someone with Depression

5. You know, they have pills for that now...
4. I have a friend with depression so I know exactly how you feel!
3. Stop making excuses
2. You have depression? Just try get over it/Lighten up/Get a grip/Well, everyone gets depressed at some point.
1. What do you have to be depressed about?

Just don't say it.

Today This Girl dies of procrastination

...symptoms include: repetitive use of the phrase "I'll do it later/just now/tomorrow, etc.; sudden impulses to complete tasks other than the one you're currently worried about that you've been putting off; slight self-hatred and guilt.  

What a clichéd way to start a post after I've been gone for so long. I'm sorry. I should have put more effort in. After all, if I'm going to be skipping work to do a post, it might as well be a good one, right? Can't make any promises though - I've realised how useless I am in terms of consistency.

I’m not quite giving myself enough credit though. We’re about 3 weeks into a new year and term and I already feel like I’m keeping up with the workload. It just depends on your definition of ‘keeping up’. See, there are a couple; one is similar to going for a jog - you're pacing yourself and making good time. Another can be compared to all those American movies depicting a character racing frantically after a train, jumping on just before they would faceplant on the gravel. I don’t think that would work anymore though, I’ve become woefully unfit (a mere 1½ months away from my 21^st birthday). Plus those scenarios are completely ridiculous - why are those trains always so old fashioned anyway? I’m pretty sure that trains don’t have balconies on the back anymore these days… But I digress. 

I’ve been slaving over a desk in my little bat cave these past couple of weeks which mostly narrows down to me trying to stay abreast of the Chinese situation – a marginally successful endeavour.  When it comes to the social scene, however this year is BOSS.

In this case, on the weekends I join up with other people who have been working too hard and everyone just gets smashed. It’s so great. Seeing overworked schmucks getting more drunk than is wise and lunging at each other in misplaced lust (Friars – I’m talking about you, yes) is how I would imagine watching two drunken elephant-giraffe hybrids trying to hook up feels like. But we don’t judge here. Well, not to your face anyway.

To cheer everyone up, I have TWO glorious videos for you all to watch. One is Somebody I used to Know by Gotye:

The next one is the exact same song, but this group is just amaZING! Five people playing on one guitar; need I say more?

Somebody I Used to Know - Walk Off the Earth

By the way, whilst looking for the correct spelling of ‘schmuck’, I came across its definition – ‘the foreskin that is removed from the penis during a circumcision’. I’m not really quite sure how I feel about using that word anymore.

Today This Girl dies of technophobism and grammar nazism

I fully realise that the title of this post makes little to no sense; but you get to a certain point where you just stop caring about being correct - politically, grammatically or otherwise.

Usually I love messing around with gadgets and whatsits with cool little thingamajoggys that need 20% manual-knowledge and 100% fiddling-til-you-find-out-what-THAT-does-knowledge. Today - not so much. To provide some backstory - when i was on a gap year in 2010, I bought an iPhone4 in America with the money I made working at a summer camp. Despite many people telling me that it wouldn't work when i got back to South Africa due to 'exclusivity rights signed by Apple and AT and T', obviously I bought it anyway. Sometimes, when I got through particularly self-loathing stages in life, I think I may have bought it as a challenge. Tell me I can't use it when I get back? You simply MUST be lying, I will prove you wrong using some of the $1800 painstakingly earned over 9 weeks of my life to buy this wonderful piece of gadgetry! I guess the joke's on me then.

To get back to the point, after two years of attempts to use the phone through methods such as jailbreaking (waaay too complicated for such a so-called 'simple procedure'), Gevy sim (actually worked for a while until I stupidly tried to update my iPhone's software) and finally, the legal way (phoning Apple in America to try ask them to unlock the phone so I can use it here) I have finally admitted defeat and have officially given up.

Long story short, I am now the proud owner of an $800 paperweight.