I remember baking bread with my mom as a little kid. She would tell me to punch down the dough, but I was never able to hit it hard enough. It was too fluffy and firm and determined. The dough would stick to my knuckles and hurt my fist, but wouldn't let me pummel the air out of it. Depression is like that too. It rises insistently inside of me, no matter what I do to try and stave it off. I am helpless, as if fleeing from a monster in a dream. My feet won't move.
When depression arrives, full and grey and wholly present, then suddenly that's all there is. Everything else that I thought I had--words, pictures, projects--is immaterial. No, that's not right. Now those things are nothing but material, piles of heavy stuff that I can't bear to touch, like a horrible damp carpet folded up endlessly.
I want to be interested. I want to be enthusiastic. I want to be energetic and happy. I'm not so far removed that I don't remember those better states of being. But I can't break into them. I can't even take a step toward doing that.
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