the fight.

i haven't posted for a whole week and very sporadically for the past month. i feel like my life is in limbo right now. i'm fighting the feeling of panic as my immediate future is, quite literally, unknown. i can't say with any certainly, what my plans are past this july. as much as i try to convince myself that everything will, as usual, work out just the way it is supposed to work out, i can't help but feeling that little hard lump somewhere deep in my chest and that tightening of my throat and that itch in the back of my mind.
i've tried writing about mundane everyday stuff. i've tried being sarcastic and witty. nothing helps. it's sort of like those nightmares where the big gloopy globby monster is chasing you and you feel like you're running through quicksand--no matter how hard you try, you just don't seem to be making any progress.
anxiety. stress. depression. yes. yes. and yes. all of the above. i've procrastinated contacting my doctor to discuss the possibility of medication. i've wanted to try less invasive (or at least synthetic) means of working through this. i'm not so sure i can do it without a little man-made help. and what's so wrong with that? for some reason, i hesitate. perhaps it is the belief that i'm weak if i get help. perhaps it is the inner belief that i don't deserve anything better. i know in an intellectual sense that i DO deserve better. i DO deserve happiness, as we all do. it is the emotional part of me that just doesn't buy into the whole happiness contract.
as morbid as this may sound, i know deep in my heart that the day will come when i will not be able to maintain an equilibrium and i will give up. in my heart i believe it is wrong and it will be the one thing that would keep me from going to heaven, but i also know i will come to a place where my mind won't be as strong as it is now. i won't be able to fight the depression and the thoughts that come with it. alzheimer's disease runs in my family. i'm the only one in my immediate family, that i'm aware of, who has major depression. combine the two and the resulting cocktail ain't that pretty. what a pleasant future to look forward to, huh?
only another person who has experienced true, clinical depression can appreciate what i'm saying. before i experienced it myself, i just didn't fully understand how pervasive and persistent depression can be. it truly affects all of you, every cell in your body and every stretch of your spirit. i suppose, in some ways, i see it as having that classic, internal struggle of good and evil played out on a grander scheme than the ordinary human being might. a dance, no--a clash, of the good angel and the bad angel, fighting for your soul. sometimes you just want the fight to be over, regardless of the outcome. sometimes you want the good angel to prevail. sometimes you just want to succumb to the bad angel and become the shadow of yourself that it wants you to be.
i'm not ready to become the shadow, although it seems i am well on my way to becoming just that. i still want happiness. i still have some hope. i just have to fight the bad angel's words: no one cares; you don't really matter in the grand scheme of things; you better off being the nothing i want you to be. as long as i have that little glimmer of hope, the fight will go on. i'll hang on to the limbo because, right now, it is my reality. reality is, after all, much preferred over the alternatives.