Hello! Sorry this is so long overdue, I figured I'd write a longer post talking about why I haven't been super active on Neocities lately. Content warnings for depression, mental health, medical abuse, and all that stuff. Seriously, this is heavy.
I've been officially, professionally diagnosed with depression since before I was ten years old. My childhood was not even close to a happy one, and was something no one should have to go through. I cannot envision a life where I don't feel a constant sense of melancholy. It's not like, one day I was happy, and now I'm not, it's more like I've never really felt happy? I haven't tried every treatment available, obviously. But I've ended up trying most the ones that are accessible to me, and nothing has really helped, and I'm currently in a weird position where I can't actually receive any mental health services even if I reached out. I've just sort of had to learn how to deal with it aside from that.
And to be honest, I've just sort of had to accept this unwanted bossom friend of mine. It feels like it's not even worth it to keep trying to find a new treatment just to end up with zero results or worse. I don't want to keep trying and trying to find whatever newest treatment is on the market only to have it fail over and over again. I don't have the strength, the willpower, the money, the time, or the desire to continue trying this again and again and again and again, over and over, just to end up with it not helping. It's exhausting to continue trying to seek treatment only for nothing to work or help.
I mean, for fuck's sake, I was on the maximum doses of Lexapro and Abilify when I was ten, and just had to pretend like my depression was better because I didn't want to keep having my meds change over and over again. I can't remember a time in my childhood where my mom didn't convince medical professionals to constantly give me more and more medicine.
I've tried several forms of therapy and almost every antidepressant on the market. I've tried vitamin D, and positive thinking, and yoga. I've tried prayer and grovelling to some higher power to please don't make me feel like this forever, and I've tried repenting for whatever sins I've commited. I've tried several medical tests to try and find out if it was something physical that could be treated, only for all of them to come back completely normal. The most I've been able to achieve with any of that is just sitting with it, side-by-side, and accepting that, try as I might, I'll just have to live like this forever.
I can try to distract myself, sure, I can try to tune it out, or stick a blanket over top of it, but my depression is never going to leave or be effectively treated to a point where I can actually ignore it, instead of just trying to avoid it. For reasons beyond my control, my brain is effectively broken beyond any repair, and the best I can really do is try to trudge along without further breaking myself. I hate it, more than anything.
Usually, it's just a nagging sense at the back of my head. It's not great, and I wish I didn't have it, but it's manageable for the most part, and I can cope pretty easily. Other times, it's like I'm being strangled with it. And the changing of the seasons from summer to fall, and fall to winter, always makes it much worse. Based on the above paragraph, I'm sure you can tell roughly where I am on the "Med Depression Sliding Scale."
That, combined with chronic migraines and being busy, has made it difficult to actually sit down and work on my site. One of my migraine triggers is "coding for more than an hour," and although I've tried changing the color schemes to make it easier on me, it doesn't help much.
Hopefully, this episode will pass soon and I can get back to work on my site. Until then, I'll be working on it where and when I can.