The Frustration of Slowly Recovering From Depression

I still have to remind myself that only a few months ago I was spending my days in bed, miserable.

So much has changed since then, since keeping steadfast with therapy and changing my medication. I’ve even started venturing more seriously into The Outside World, with classes and volunteering.

But I find the need for energy in The Outside World is much greater than the amount I have now — what was enough when I was in my bed certainly isn’t enough now that I must interact with others, engage, work. Interacting, mostly, has been difficult. It leaves me anxious and drained very easily, and so I often feel very isolated because I’m not interacting as much as I need to, for lack of energy. It was different when I was accustomed, even comfortable, in lonesomeness. Now I have enough energy to (sorely) miss my friends but not enough energy to keep in regular touch with them, as I’d like. I just feel too depleted.

That’s the thing, though — as soon as I reached this intermediate state of healing, I began to yearn for a whole, full life, lived in full capacity, when just months ago I was practically in hibernation. I’m finding The Outside World very taxing, and I don’t want to. I want to feel as if I’ve been participating in it forever. But… I haven’t. And it shows in how much I’m struggling to adjust to Real Life, even if it feels ridiculous I still have to take so many steps at baby pace, for my own sake, since emotionally I feel so much better. But mentally, energetically, motivationally, I’m still fairly the same.

A big part of me already wants to go live life at full throttle and is disappointed and immensely frustrated when I can’t — when I feel literally unable, when I see baby steps is still what’s needed and required. But I want to be proud of my life already. I’m extremely impatient for things to start getting good — and they are, but slowly. And a big part of me wants good now, fast, abundantly, and it hurts when I don’t get to have it. That I have to wait, and take the proper steps to everything, and can’t be on the other side of healing just yet — that I still have to pace myself and not take a “step bigger than my leg.”

Basically, at the merest sight of some improvement, I wanted to be completely OK again, and I’m not — I can’t yet be — and that frustrates me. I want to be completely OK again, and I’m still not. I’ve got an engine roaring to go inside me, but the car is still missing parts — it can’t go at full speed yet. I want to race already, I want to race now, but I can’t.

I’ve gotta wait — for the car fixing to be complete. (If it’ll ever be “complete.”) But I can’t be racing just yet… and that’s really frustrating to a (seemingly) healthy engine.

Follow this journey on The Self Express.

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Photo by Eddy Lackmann, via Unsplash