Alvin, He's a Sneaky Bastard

The clock is fasting approaching 10pm on Sunday night and I have exactly one sentence written for this blog. I had the idea for this blog in my head for the better part of the week and just haven’t had the motivation to sit down and work on it. I could make a lot of excuses about being busy and tired but the reality is a sneaky monster that hides in the shadows crept up on me and zapped my motivation to do much of anything other than sit on the couch and watch YouTube videos. What’s that sneaky monster’s name you ask? Well in my world that sneaky monster’s name is Alvin, but the rest of you many know him as depression.

Yep I named my depression. It was an idea I stole from Duff thePsych, I talked about his book on anxiety a while back. It helps me in a couple of ways, it reminds me that depression is not who I am, it’s simply a visitor and it gives me something to focus on when I’m fighting back. But like I stated Alvin is a sneaky guy and occasionally sneaks up on me so slowly and covertly that I don’t even notice he’s back until I am in the midst of it.  He lurks in the shadows, and latches on the natural downs of life and starts to convince me that they are downs that will last forever and things will never go up again. That is exactly what happened to me in the last couple of weeks.

Alvin has been part of my life for a long time, probably my whole life. But I first got to know Alvin really well when I was in college. I worked long and hard to build up my arsenal of tools and weapons to kick Alvin in the face when he starts taking up a little too much space in my brain. But apparently as I have gotten stronger in fighting Alvin, Alvin has gotten sneakier on how he starts taking up space. This time he was so sneaky I didn’t even realize he was coming for a visit until I was right in the thick of it.

About a week and a half ago I was part of a live stream to preview a couple of chapters from Duff’s new book (super excited) and he was reading a chapter about motivation and the ways in which depression sucks that right out of you. As I was listening I was thinking that sounds a lot like me right now. . .and then it hit me like a bolt of lightening. . .wait a minute am I depressed???? So I did a quick check in with myself and really thought about my behavior over the last week and holy shit, what do ya know Alvin came for a visit and the sneaky bastard didn’t even warn me he as coming and set up shop without me even noticing.

But what happened next was really confusing to me. Rather than immediately jumping to action, grabbing the nearest depression slaying weapon, I went even further under Alvin’s spell and got even more depressed. Because clearly it was my fault that I was depressed, I let Alvin come back and I should have caught it sooner, I should know better by now right? Right? You see all of these things are lies that Alvin tells me about who am and what kind of person I am because I struggle with visits from him in the first place. These are the types of down Alvin likes to latch on to and blow out of proportion.

Alvin casting his spell.

Let me state the most important part of that last paragraph again. . .THESE ARE LIES. The fact that Alvin is part of my life says NOTHING about the type of person I am or how I measure up as a human being. It simply means that my brain is wired differently than other people’s brains. It’s not my fault that my brain is wired that way and it doesn’t make me a lesser person because of it. That is just the particular genetic lottery I won I guess.

The incredibly frustrating thing about depression is that it is often, what we call in the biz, recurrent. Meaning you may have an episode of depression that lasts for a while (minimum 2 weeks, but can last for much longer) and then you start to come out of it and feel better. And you may feel better for weeks, months or even years and then at some point you have another episode of depression. It is the part that I find most aggravating about depression as do most of my clients. You are in what is probably the darkest place you have been in your life and you fight like hell to get out of it. Finally everything is going well again and at then all of the sudden, BAM you are back in it despite your best efforts to take care of yourself.

If you have been in that place or are in that place now let me just say I feel your pain. I know it sucks, hard core, but it’s not your fault. Don’t let your Alvin convince you that the lies he is peddling are true.  We’ve been here before, we have an arsenal of weapons to use to hurry Alvin’s exit along, and we will beat him again. You just have to muster the energy to open the arsenal and pick up that first weapon. As hard as that can be in the midst of a visit from Alvin if we can pick up that first weapon we will win in the end.

As I indicated at the beginning of this blog, this is not being written on the “other side” where I have come through the darkness and are back to my normal self. I am still  in the midst of battling Alvin to get him evicted from my brain space. As evidence to that, it is now well past 11pm on that same Sunday night. Writing this has been a challenge because Alvin keeps telling me to quit, it just requires so. much. energy. And that no one cares about I have to say anyway (which might be true but isn’t really why I like to blog anyway) But pushing through to the end and finishing this blog is my win against Alvin tonight and puts me one step closer to evicting that little pain in the ass.