The Body Remembers

I’ll be honest…

I’m not doing so great.

I’m in the beginings stages of a depressive cycle. This is the Big One that I go through almost every year. Some years aren’t so bad. But the bad ones…the bad ones are really bad.

Found myself the other day just feeling sad, crying for no reason and just struggling to keep it together for everyone elses sake. I mean, I almost cried in public it was that bad. Now over the past few weeks I’ve been feeling…blah. I wasn’t sad or crying or feeling upset but I sure heck wasn’t feeling rays of unconstrained joy. Hovered in the middle in what I like to describe as the Passive Observer stage on a scale of 1 to 10. It’s right between 5 and 6. You can see it if you squint.

The Passive Observer stage is simple: You aren’t living. You’re floating through life observing things happening around you like an over the shoulder life simulation. Sure you get up, brush your teeth, go to work, hang with friends, do all the “normal human” stuff, but it feels like you’re disconnected from your body.

I honestly feel like this a lot of the time. Sure I’ve got good days and times where I really am in the moment but my “normal” is this disconnected state.

Anyway, the point of the title.

So there I was trying to figure out why this was happening. Did I eat something I shouldn’t have? Did I take my pills? I mean sure, winter is coming but it’s nothing to really cry over. Then it came to me.

My dad was diagnosed with lung cancer around this time.

About sixteen years ago, my family moved halfway across the world practically overnight to get my dad the medical attention that he needed to fight. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work.

The point is, my body remembered. It remembered all the emotions I went through and experienced during that time. It’s like opening wounds that you didn’t know you had. One moment you’re fine, and the next you’re bleeding and you’re not even sure how or where. It’s a yearly cycle I go through. It starts sometimes in September and hangs around till about June. Again, sometimes it isnt as bad, I barely notice it. Other times though, I’m crying my eyes out on a sunny day at the park and I don’t even know why.

The body remembers.

 

A Disconnected Writer