This isn't always a bad thing. Besides being unwaveringly eager to please, self-loathing women tend to...oh nevermind. That's really not the direction I wanted to take this.
There are some terms you should familiarize yourself with:
Ambivilance: uncertainty or fluctuation, especially when caused by inability to make a choice or by a simultaneous desire to say or do two opposite or conflicting things. This is really Loony 101 stuff. It is, frankly, paralyzing in a way that you will probably never fully understand. I assure you it is more frustrating to your Lover than it is to you. It can present as laziness to the untrained eye, so be careful here. Suggesting it may actually be laziness not recommended.
Ambivilance can manifest itself in the following thrilling and fully enjoyable ways:
- difficulty concentrating, remembering details and making decisions (you will need to help your Lover find her keys/wallet/phone multiple times daily)
- loss of interest in activities or hobbies once pleasureable, including sex (results may vary!)This is important, though. I call it the joy-suck. You literally lose the ability to feel joy. You feel that you should feel joy, and recognize an event as joyous, but...that's not really the same thing.
Irritability/Moodiness: easily annoyed; readily excited to impatience or anger; ill-humored. This is a bigee especially if there are kids around. I'm told kids who like to push emotional buttons can be particularly challanging for people suffering from this symptom.
- tread lightly, on eggshells, much of the time, cause this baby pops up out of the blue, 0-120 in 5 seconds, for no rational reason whatsoever. If you have fallen in love with someone who's been depressed for years, they may have mastered the time-honored art of swallowing their anger until it becomes a mildly uncomfortable, festering sore of resentment in the pit of their stomach. Consider yourself lucky.
Appetite: An instinctive physical desire, especially one for food or drink. Um...yeah. Let's break this sucker up to tackle it.
- Food - some depressed people have no appetite at all and find it difficult to get enough nutrition. I hate them. Okay, I don't really hate them, but...if you're going to suffer from appetite disturbances this would be the way to go. Personally, I eat like a Dickens character. Like I may never get food again....sometimes 4 or 5 times a day. The kicker? That whole ambivilance thing above really puts a kink in the ol' exercise routine...so, remember: Big girls need love too.
- Drink - Ah, the drink. The world's most socially acceptable form of self-medication. Many women suffering from Depression, I'm told, find the the warm, numbing glow of a bottle of red irresistible...understand: we know that drinking doesn't solve any of our problems. We just like that it helps us forget about them for a few useless hours...(in all seriousness, for a momment - this is a real problem as alcohol renders anti-depressants less effective. If you're shelling out $100/month for Zoloft & Welbutrin, you're pissing it away when you chase it with a Yuengling. Not that that's likely to change your mind.)
Sleep Disturbances: a medical disorder of the sleep patterns of a person or animal, serious enough to interfere with normal physical, mental and emotional functioning. This can be getting too much sleep or not enough, or a mixture of both at different times, and it is fucking awful.
- "Sleep - its such a bitter form of refuge" - The Killers. This is alot like the drink, really. When you feel pretty crappy much of the time, sleep is a great way to not feel anything. I could be happy as a clam sleeping 12-16 hours/day. In fact, now that I'm giving it some thought (yay for blog!) some of my happiest momments are lying in bed or on the sofa fully aware that I can sleep for the next 10 hours (or so). I love everything about it - the drifting, the groginess, the dreaming...the knowing that I am not responsible for doing anything when I'm asleep.
- Insomnia - chronic inability to fall asleep or remain asleep for an adequate length of time. She's a bitch. She visits a couple times a year and renders you completely incapable of working, parenting, living...insomnia is often the symptom of Depression that will make people actually call off work, cancel appointments, and otherwise let their life turn to shit.
Self-Loathing: Strong feelings of worthlessness or guilt. Harshly criticizing oneself for perceived faults and mistakes. This is where the trajectory turns on itself and becomes an inescapable loop: the symptoms above all feed the self-loathing, and the self-loathing feeds all the symptoms above. And its something I can't explain.
- There have been amazing men & women - heros, actors, writers, world leaders - who have suffered from this. If it were as easy as saying "but wait - you're awesome!" then Depression wouldn't even be an issue. Its not rational. You often recognize it as detrimental behavior. But you do it anyway. Which, niftily, provides another weakness to judge yourself for...
So what to do? My advice, in no particular order:
- Run. If you can still get out, do it. This is no fun. Just sayin'.
- Realize that you can't love someone out of Depression. Depression isn't caused by a lack of people loving you or that love lacking quality - thus, it can't be cured by love either.
- Encourage your partner. Suggest a hike rather than a trip to the bar. Sign the two of you up for a class. Encourage your partner in any way you can to participate, to be engaged in life. Frankly, they don't have the gumption to do it themselves.
- Just hold them when they cry for no reason and let them do it. Its cathartic. Unless it continues for more than a day or two...in that case call for back-up. The Mom, the best friend, the shrink who's home number is programmed in their phone, whatever...
- Cover their ass, because they will surely fuck shit up. Let work slide, skip laundry for a month, what have you...but at the same time -
- Hold them responsible. Its o-so-tempting to romanticize Depression, to come to depend on it. Its such a great crutch.
- Realize that Depression is an illness, not a characteristic or a character flaw or even a great, under utlizied way of life/philosophy. Its none of those things. Its neurons in your brain that fire when they shouldn't, and don't fire when they should.
- Avoid the 'pull yourself up by your boot straps' approach, as it generally just feeds that whole self-loathing thing we talked about.
That said, there are definite upsides. If you've ever wished you had a partner who was more sensitive, a depressed gal may just be for you! We feel things more deeply than most people do - sorry, but its true - and as such we (generally) have great reserves of empathy. Empathy and narcissism....we can appreciate the irony, even if we're not laughing.
