I admitted to myself on Wednesday that I was worried that I was getting depressed. I said that I left work because I had a migraine; that was neither totally true nor totally false. I did have a bitch of a headache, but it wasn’t crippling. It was getting there.

But I did realize that I needed to get away from work–right then. So, I did.

I spent Wednesday either sleeping or solemnly playing MVP Baseball 2004 while letting my mind just wander. To my knowledge, I’ve really only been depressed once–and that simply the confluence of a bunch of saddening events: my dog dying, a high school friend dying, and the frustrations of my senior year at MSMS really beginning to weigh upon me. I can’t remember whether this was before or after my ill-fated rafting trip with Rick where we spent more time in the water after wiping out than we did in the canoe. I haven’t told that story here, but it’s riotously funny if you can get past the Geof-almost-drowned bit.

Anyhow, though, Wednesday night I was wholly unable to sleep. I guess my issue was that I could not vocalize the problem. I inherently knew that I was becoming depressed, but I guess my mind was more focused on the probable causes and solutions than simply acknowledging the problem.

That’s pretty typical for me. I was an engineer before I was academically and vocationally trained to be one; seeing a problem, I’ll jump to a solution pretty quick. The problem was, frankly, that I wouldn’t admit the problem.

I spent all day Thursday mulling that, wondering how to say it, or where to say it, or what to say. I spent Thursday at home from work, again with a “migraine”. If I’d gone in at 9:00 a.m., I’d have been fine to work that day, even with the sleepless night–by then, I’d gotten enough sleep to get me through.

I came in yesterday and pretended as if nothing was wrong. It worked for a while. It stopped working around 10:30 a.m. Why, I don’t know.

I then spent 15 minutes figuring out how to say it. Post it on my site in public? No; my parents have enough to deal with right now. They are strong, and I really hate to exclude them from this, but I don’t need to send them into orbit right now. I don’t admit this readily, but they’ve both had issues with depression in their adult lives. Why I thought I’d be immune is a question I cannot well answer.

But at 10:45, I broke and sent the following email to Stephen, Misty, and Rick:

Hey guys.

I think Misty twigged to it the other night, but couldn’t say it, not in a group.

I’m worried that I’m slipping into depression.

Admitting it is what I need, even though it makes me feel weak, and I never want to feel weak.

But I can’t deny it.

I’ve been here once before, but it’s been a long time. Rick sorta knew me then, but not really.

I promise that I won’t do anything stupid, but … damn, most days I feel like I’m about to just lose it.

And I need to say that to someone, and even though y’all have enough burdens …

Love y’all.

Geof

The penultimate sentence is paramount, to my reading. I am someone who is sought out for advice. I am a source of strength to others. But where is my source of strength?

I’ll be honest and note that my own faithfulness in terms of attending worship at church and honestly working through a prayerful consideration of my own life is, well, nowhere right now. I can’t begin to tell you why it’s not, but I think that this is the root of most of my problems right now.

Yes, in admitting the problem, I’ve now stared to seek a solution. That solution is to seek out the underlying causes and deal with them on an individual basis. The next problem is pretty clear, even though I’ve not said it anywhere until now–I’m just not being faithful by works.

The United Methodist Church asks four things of its members: their prayers, their presence, their gifts, and their service. At best, I’ve been getting the last two done in my work with the church; however, I’ve not been doing well with the first two. I need to pray for my church, and to be honest, I need to have them praying for me. It is not enough to rely upon three friends, even if they are strong ones who love me deeply and are there for me when I need them.

Knowing this allows me to work on solving the problem of presence. I think that’s the easiest to solve–for without presence, I can’t ask for prayers.

Small steps. I’m already feeling myself coming out of the deep hole. It’s a slow road up, but at least it’s not going down.

[A note to the reader: this entry was originally published as a private entry on my site. At some point, I'll make these public. Please understand that it's been hard not to make these public, but I have my reasons for not doing so now, where now is the time of posting. In publishing these when things are better, I am not only providing a trail of my own path for others who might find themselves there, but I'm providing myself breadcrumbs as a reminder in case I get stupid and do this again.]