Depression: Guilty About Feeling Good

I’m feeling good today. I am productive. I am feeling, dare I say it, happy. Feeling good makes me feel like I am a fraud or that I somehow have to justify how I feel. I feel good.

That’s the problem with suffering from depression and anxiety. When I feel bad, I feel terrible. When I feel good, I feel like I am a fraud. When I feel good, I feel like somehow I am not fitting in with my diagnosis. When I feel good, I feel like I am lying.

This morning, I feel good. I have a done a lot of hard work to get here. I spent days crying. I walked around, half a person, as the depression and the anxiety and thoughts and memories played around in my brain and I endured. I did the days where getting out of bed and showering was the equivalent of an Ironman marathon and I did the days when I couldn’t get out of bed. I had days when I almost felt better. Some days I could cope and then, by mid afternoon I would be in tears. Those days, I didn’t feel I needed to justify my depression. I was just depressed and that was how life was.

Today, I feel good.

I have worked hard to get here, wherever here is. I feel good. I am even willing to say that I am cautiously optimistic. That scares me.

The depression has me beat myself up when I feel bad. It tells me that I am a lazy unproductive sloth. It tells me that I am not worthy. It tells me that I don’t deserve to feel anything. It tells me that I am faking it. It tells me that I am just a big old fake. It reduces me further than I have ever been reduced.

The depression has me beat myself up when I feel good. It tells me that I have depression and that if I don’t walk around crippled all the time that nobody will believe me. It tells me that good days aren’t real. It warns me that if I feel good that the worst is yet to come. It tells me that, if I feel good that I am probably lying about having depression. It tells me to give up because the good times aren’t even going to last.

The truth is somewhere else. I am having a good day today. That’s all. So far, this morning, I am having a good day. I don’t have to do anything about it. If I choose to, this morning and for the rest of the day, I can just be. I can just enjoy my day. I can ignore the voice, I can live my life, and I can do whatever happens to be in front of me. I can even enjoy it.

I can do that right now. I can be and I can be happy and have depression. I don’t have to suffer every minute. If anyone challenges me, I can be polite and tell them to mind their own business or I can tell them to fuck off. I can be happy, useful and productive by being me, whatever that means for me, today.

I can be joyful and I can have anxiety and depression. Today, I make the choice to accept my happiness and joy and to like my life.