High Functioning Depression is Like Running a Marathon Every Day

Who knew grief could be so exhausting?

Bev Potter
Black Bear

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Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

I think I’ve always been depressed.

I was too shy to talk in school until fifth grade, the same year I had a sort of hysterical laughing/crying jag when I got caught with a much more interesting book tucked into whatever book I was supposed to be reading.

I was terrified of getting in trouble — getting in trouble at home meant a beating, and the principal had a giant paddle with holes in it hanging on his wall.

But the teacher just patted my shoulder with a nervous look on her face until I calmed down and nothing more was said about it.

The first time I was prescribed medication, I was in my 20s and my first husband was beginning dialysis. I cried every day and developed an anxiety disorder that still dogs me. We were both so young and so terrified. And then my dad developed kidney disease and went on dialysis, as well.

Guess which disease I’m most afraid of.

I visited a psychiatrist (who was also the psychiatrist at the county jail) who decided that Remeron was the answer. But my “friends” at the court where I worked said it made me mean and I stopped taking it.

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Bev Potter
Black Bear

Legal secretary by day, insomniac by night. Ally. BA, MA. Humor, pop culture, and things that make you think. My weekly-ish newsletter is bevpotter.substack.com