GAF,
I think I've been depressed for years. From my childhood and troubles in my parents' relationship, to the feeling of loneliness and isolation as I did work and watched as other friends hung out. It made me feel the lowest of lows. Once I went to college, I wallowed in that for a bit and sought the highest of highs. I don't mean drugs, but just trying to make up for everything I had lost. Needless to say, I don't think it worked. Up until today, I felt like I was not living up to anyone's expectations.
Today I realized something. I walked out of a counseling center at school for the first time, and I realized I had sought one extreme and continued to feel another. I saw my lows and wanted them to fill the high notes as much as I could. I think I never experienced a happy medium. I learned that depression comes in cycles. I certainly felt it. Whenever the highs of anything subsided I was left searching for more. If I didn't, or if it was not as great as I expected, I would drop all the way down.
It made sense to me: I always seemed to seek something interesting. That may be good to keep things fresh, but I never enjoyed the status quo. I thought that it was something to hate and loath. In my quest to avoid it, I made my low my medium.
It's funny, because I used to hate one character in my chinese name. 庸 has the connotation of mediocre. I didn't want to be mediocre, and so I hated it. Then I remembered what my mom had said about my name:
It's not 庸 in the mediocre term, it was given to mean 中庸, one of the big 4 confuscian books. The Doctrine of the Mean.
Mean, middle. Copacetic. I felt amazed. I think this is what I've been missing.
I need to learn to enjoy the normal. And yes, there ARE things to enjoy of the ordinary. That's not to say that I shouldn't seek high experiences, or that I should take the presence of a low to be the status quo.
I need to find my happy medium.
I'm not well versed in depression, and I'm not sure if this is complete bollocks or not. I've avoided the term for most of my life, and have never sought help. Today was the first time ever. But I feel better.
I know there are chemicals at play that make it simpler than a mindset, but am I off in saying that I might have come through breakthrough (least for me?) I don't expect Rome to be built in a few hours, but I haven't felt this at peace in a very long time. There's still more work to be done, but I see myself getting out of this.
GAF, what do you see as your medium?