I've been trying to come up with an accurate description of how I'm feeling. Or have felt. Or whatever. In the past, I've written about how it feels when I'm in the throes of depression - the agonizing, sobbing, everything is pointless, suicidal depression. And in the past, I know I've done a pretty good job of that.
But this depression is different.
This is not that agonizing, suicidal depression. No, I'm in the I-don't-feel-anything-and-life-is-pointless-and-meaningless type of depression. Which is bad in its own way. It's just different.
But how do I describe it? How do I make real this nothingness I'm feeling. This anhedonia.
I believe that everyone sees in color. They see the vibrant color of life. The beautiful 3 dimensional trueness of everything around them. The colors and substance have meaning and weight and permanence. There is passion behind those colors. There are feelings behind and associated with those colors. The colors truly have meaning.
Whereas I see everything as grey. Shades of grey (and I'm not talking about that popular book . . .). Everything is dull and grimy and flat - 2 dimensional. There is no passion. There is no meaning. Nothing carries any weight because everything is the same. There are no feelings behind the greyness. It just is. This leaves me feeling like an outsider. Life is going on around me - flourishing - and I'm on the sidelines, unable to participate, because I can't see the colors. I'm a spectator and nothing more. Sure, I go through the motions and put on the mask. I pretend I can see the colors because that is what's expected. But it's just that grey . . .
Every once in awhile, the grey recedes a little and some colors snake through around the edges. Every once in awhile those colors manage to cloud over the grey and I can see. I can actually see. The meaning breaks through. The passion and purpose breaks through and I can actively participate in life.
But the grey always wins out. It rushes back in, stamping out the color and asserting itself once more. I'm left with the memory that life should mean something . . . but I can no longer feel it.
My breakthroughs don't last all that long. 5-10 minutes? Maybe, if I'm lucky, an hour. I may have no breakthroughs on a particular day. Sometimes I'll have several.
But I'm always left seeing the grey.
