The view from Bluebeard's castle

Depression has taken a shit on our household. Since my birthday I've been okay - bursting into spontaneous song, looking forward to the future, hugging people and heckling television screens as usual. And even on the shittiest days I wasn't too badly off because, let's face it, I spent a year and a half parting with my spare cash to a Jungian for a practical reason as well as for educational and developmental reasons - I know I have some damagingly melancholic tendencies and I knew that I had to learn to live with them so they wouldn't be damaging no more.

The F-word, however, is still wandering around like a particularly pissed off lost soul. You'd think I understand, right? Sympathize? Oh, but I do. Then when he doesn't demonstrate appreciation of my understanding and my sympathy to my satisfaction, they flip into teeth-gritting annoyance so easily! And if I'm perfectly honest with myself, in the end it all boils down to the ignoble but persistent pissy little thought: 'how can you possibly be so depressed for so long when you have me?!'

And that pissy little thought can be deconstructed even further. Because I can recall the most depressive period of my life, the one where I was living in what felt like a glass box without airholes, and that was around the time that I was living with Bluebeard. Life with him was difficult - he was a difficult person. No doubt about that. But at no time then, and not now either, could I say he caused the depressive state I was in. What I can say is that our ongoing relationship was a symptom of that state. If I wasn't in that state, I would have left him immediately. There might have been some nasty chambers in that castle, but the front door wasn't locked.

Nonetheless, having had that experience makes me paranoid now that our relationship is a symptom of the F-word's depression. I can look at that paranoia and see it's a false comparison - for example, I'm not fucking insane and I have reserves of everyday patience that poor old Bluebeard was never educated to have. But I have the paranoia nonetheless. I have it and it drives me nuts with annoyance when I 'understand' and 'sympathize' with the F-word's depression and it doesn't go away. It takes every particle of my everyday patience to not scream at him to do something about his depression instead of subjecting me to it when I'm so great and understanding and sympathetic and not at all like Bluebeard (am I?), and sometimes the best I can manage is a withdrawal from the situation.

And when I step back from the situation and try to analyze it, like this morning, it drives me nuts with annoyance that we piddly little people have to look at the world and each other through the flawed prism of our narrow little selves. We can sympathize, we can relate, but finally that's the best we can do - relating - and understanding anything beyond our own experience is never a sure or even a good bet. How limited, how frustrating. No wonder people get such a kick out of believing in a God who knows all and sees all, which I would assume would include being able to see through all of our eyes. No wonder Christians dream of going to a heaven where they can share in that. No wonder Buddhists struggle to leave the self behind. Et cetera.

Anyways, I suppose I should go count my blessings as I'm not depressed, not at all, very happy in fact. Melbine, who has not been so very active blogwise, may be less so as her new baby just popped out two weeks ahead of schedule, picture perfect and without a hitch. Sweet - another little Sagittarian to get indignant about the rotten state of this naughty world, and to walk into perfectly visible coffee tables! My cup runneth over.