Depression

I've been depressed longer than I've been meditating. Meditation was suggested for me as a practice to handle the depression, actually; and for the most part, I think it's been one of the better tools.I was just writing a letter to my school's administration, to ask for extra time to take my exams. Over the past several months the anti-depressant I've been on has been slowly wearing off. This has meant attempts to switch to other medications, and to supplement other ones in, too. I wrote to the school's disability officer, explaining this, and listing the symptoms that have been coming up lately:

• suicidal ideation,
• horrific insomnia,
• wild swings in appetite,
• and of course mood disturbances (an impending sense of imminent doom, usually. And yes, that melodramatic about it, too).

... After that last one, I paused for a second as I recognized something I hadn't really thought about before. Then I wrote "I've lived with the depression for years, so most of the symptoms seem tired and hackneyed by this point. But the lack of motivation and insomnia, particularly, are difficult."

I hadn't really realized it, but the depression had become just another symptom of my mind at work. It had lost its luster, its allure. I have thoughts of suicide, but they're just thoughts; I cycle through panic, anxiety, nausea, confusion, anger, sadness and fear once or twice a day; I can practically pencil in "Two forty-five, Tuesday: all-consuming sense that you must have done something wrong that will make your world implode." It's less a mood than an appointment.

These are the symptoms of the depression I can handle. But the lack of motivation and the insomnia - those are still beyond my ken. I lie in bed all night, in meditation; never resting. When I do sleep (as last night) it's dream-sleep, where I've now begun practicing as well (by the way, tonglen in dreams? Best thing ever). This is not refreshing, though; I need my S-sleep, and the depression won't let me in.

When the motivation isn't there, though - that's the worst. I can't move; my mind is blank, and not in an "aware" kind of way. I'm dissociated, my body and mind are made of wax. The Bodhicariyavatara helps, in those moments. My depression, interestingly, gets better the less I value myself.

Thing is, I'm pretty sure those symptoms will be tired and hackneyed too, some day. They'll be like that horrible joke your Dad insists on retelling every year. I've not been alive that long but I've put my mind through 12 different kinds of hell, just to watch it squirm. I've loaded it up on drugs, bottomed it out on booze, taught it in school, forced it to deal with people, fasted it from food and water, clarified it with meditation. I should be in prison for the way I abuse my mind; if it were a person, hell, I'd be guilty of war-crimes.

But the damned thing keeps surviving. I think it's neck-and-neck with Rasputin for surviving murder-attempts. I grind away at it and grind away at it like it's a giant lens, but all it does is sit there, maybe refracting the light a little if it feels like it.

It's really quite extraordinary, when you think about it.