Blue

"He looks blue."
"I'd say a brownish-gold."
"No, I mean he's depressed."
"Oh."
Pumba and Timon in the Lion King

Yeah, it's one of those days. It took me just short of 30 years to see the symptoms of sadness and mild depression in time to prevent a meltdown. A lot of it is sleep deprivation. Some of it is teenager-deprivation. And general exhaustion.

The result is that isolated feeling, where you're pretty sure "Nobody likes me, Everybody hates me." The little voice in your head goes into paranoia overdrive, and you feel like crying every time someone hits a vulnerable spot. Which, when you're blue, is like preventing water from hitting a hole in a sieve.

God-ronically (Get it? Instead of I-ronically?), I listed to a podcast this morning on the way to school about suffering, and how suffering is a way to minister and serve others, and NOT a free pass to go out and sin. Which is what I used to do when I felt sad. My idols of choice were alcohol and boys, to dull the real pain while enhancing the superficial feelings of being loved. It's a great recipe for disaster!

Or I would attempt to function "as usual," only to blow up in a rage or an explosion of tears. I might say horrible, hurtful things under the excuse that 'I was hurting.' Or my other favorite idol, food! Stuffing myself full of thousands of calories made me feel physically full when I was emotionally empty.

Today, I understood that the empty feelings and general pallor on everything around me was due to my perspective, not to reality. The solution was to go home and hang out with husband and take care of myself. Not to the bar, not to push myself to pretend everything was A-OK, and not to overeat (even though he made spaghetti, a favorite, I mustered some self-control). And even though I don't feel 100% yet, I am really thankful that I can see through the lie - these feelings won't last forever and lots of people in my life love me. In other words, through my sadness I have found a ray of hope.

Simba got through his depression and became the Lion King... I wonder what waits for me?


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