Repression?
Today my paper's youth section ran a letter from a girl who's suffering from clinical depression. It hurt me to read her story.
Clinical depression. Through the years, I've wondered off and on whether I could possibly be suffering from it.
My saner half sniffs at me, saying, "Don't be such a drama queen! There's nothing wrong with you, and you know it!" After all, I have to admit I've never experienced even one-third the kind of stuff that this girl recounts.
Well, I don't know. Melancholy hits me out of the blue (no pun intended), sometimes triggered off by the most trivial incidents. A chance word uttered by someone in passing, a friend's unconscious action, a situation reminiscent of the past... old ghosts rise up to haunt me.
I deal with it in my own way: Cry into my pillow, rehash the past in my mind, mutter to God; sometimes I write Him a letter, my old way of communicating intimately with Him. Then I go to sleep.
Usually I'm OK by the time morning rolls around.
I wonder whether I repress stuff. Certainly I refuse to think about these things unless the dark mood hits me. I just think there's nothing to be gained by dwelling on negative matters, so I resolutely put them out of my mind.
Recently I find myself less sensitive, which could mean God is doing some healing. Or could it?
I went to the movies with Madelyn last night. We watched I Spy (starring Eddie Murphy). Madelyn jabbed her elbow in my ribs a few times during the movie - times when I burst into peals of laughter, when my laughter was particularly exhuberant. (OK, loud.)
The comments on my loud laugh began when I was in college, and have upset me very much. For some reason I felt that the criticism hit at the heart of me, at the person I really am inside.
I mean, the way I laugh is not something that's within my control. Laughter, by definition, is spontaneous. It's not like I tell myself, "I think I shall start off slow, and build to a belly laugh and rock from side to side." *rolls eyes*
So last night I was at the movies with Madelyn and she jabbed me in the ribs in an unspoken reprimand for laughing too loud. The strange thing is that I didn't feel anything. Emotionally, I mean. Physically I felt plenty, of course!
That started me wondering whether I don't feel anything because the censure really doesn't bother me anymore, or because I'm not allowing myself to feel anything.
Yes, yes, I know I make life more complicated for myself! :)