RDP Sunday: FUTILE

John Everett Millais – The Sleepwalker

Writing about my bouts of depression  is hard.

Not because I have a hard time admitting that I was on medication, that I had to see counselors and psychiatrists that I was totally broken but it’s hard to capture those moments and express them in writing.

When I think about those times, the first feeling to bubble up is anger- maybe even rage and that feeling really doesn’t capture how I  remember my state of being at the time so that in itself is interesting.

Anyway, that feeling is so out of synch with how I remember myself, that’s why I have a hard time writing about those experiences.

Or maybe that anger is what got me out of that dark place where I lived for almost 20 years.

So here is a moment from that time that sort of captures where I was.

I was at a session with my Psychiatrist ( who helped me to find my way out of that dark room I had been living in ) and he asked me, ” Do you know your right eye is closed? ”

I put my finger up to my eye and I touched my lid. ” I suppose it is.”

” Can you open it?”

I shrugged and I made the decision to open my eye.

” Did you know your eye was closed?”

I told him I did and when he asked me if I left it closed often I said I did and then he asked if I knew why I did that.

” I guess it doesn’t matter if it’s opened or not. ”

And when I said those words out loud I realized I was walking around a lot of the time with one eye shut  and that it would be easy to shut the other one too. In fact I was getting myself ready for it.

When it dawned on me what I was walking towards I got scared.

I had never been so scared in my life.

It might sound like a small thing, but a month later I got my dog and when I would do the eye thing he would get upset and I would open my eye.

I don’t do things like that anymore, but sometimes when I’m having a bad I put my finger up to my eye to make sure it’s open.

Just in case.

ps In case you are wondering about the title, over the last three Thursdays someone has been hit by the trains on the line I ride and I can’t help but to feel that at one point in my life could have been one of those Thursday People too.