(unedited) The unearthing of weeks, months and years of data left me reticent. I have daily mood charts, blog entries and of course the medication list. I can cross reference and mine the information endlessly. The reality is sad and striking. I just can’t seem to put together any long stretch of normalcy (or even a steady mood state). Even in months of very solid mood the off days are much like a step off a cliff. Notes show perfectly fine mood punctuated by descents into dark despair for a day or two, only to return to the middle like nothing happened. But those are the exceptions. The vast majority of time is spent below the middle road. Long lengths of time fluctuating between utter hopeless depression and barely hanging on. These stretches seem to far outnumber the okay ones. I think reticence is a decent response to such a dose of reality. My reality. My existence. A life that just doesn’t seen able to get on course and stay there. I cannot seem to break out of this pattern. The deep depressions that threaten my life and soul. They leave me anxious and unsteady. When the pattern shifts and the middle ground appears I can only fret at when the sadness and apathy will return. It ALWAYS does. it never leaves me. Reading over the charts and blogs I can only say it appears to be dormant. Waiting for the perfect time when stress and anxiety lay the perfect runway for its arrival. At the worst time, when I need more than anything to be strong is when I falter. When I hang on by my finger tips and dream in Technicolor lethality.
I don’t see much hope for the future. I see only more of the same. More stress and more sadness. The future is bleak when the reality is I cannot keep my mood stable for more than a few months at most before falling again. I’m not sure what kind of life this is. Not one I had hoped for.