I’ve been feeling really rather rubbish recently; more so than usual. This probably has something to do with the fact that – as the Boyf helpfully reminded me – I am clinically depressed. As if I could forget something like that.
The thing is I know that; I know I have depression and I know that plays a part in me feeling like I’m rubbish. If anything it makes it slightly worse because I know I’m feeling rubbish because I’m depressed, but because I know why I feel rubbish then I think I should be able to counter-act and reason with it.
There’s not just that though. I know that on a scale of emotional-retardedness I lean more towards the imbecilic end than average people. I don’t know if emotional retard is exactly the correct word, perhaps it’s more emotional simpleton. If something falls outwith one of my standard emotional responses I default to silence; which I think is sometimes a worse response than an inappropriate response. Of course, because I know that I haven’t reacted accordingly to a situation, it makes me feel rubbish and then I’m feeling rubbish and less likely to react “normally” and so on and so on, the cycle continues.
Recently I found myself in a situation where I knew I had to be reassuring and supportive, but I didn’t know how to go about it. The thoughts were all there, but the synaptic process of verbalising those thoughts and feelings wasn’t working. I couldn’t formulate the emotions into coherent words, phrases and sentences. When I was in that exact moment my thoughts were: it’s better to say nothing than to say the wrong thing or say the right thing in the wrong tone or to just wjgop uinoeuinojfp opwiftrh. Before, after, now I know and believe it’s better to say something, anything than to Marcel Marceau it up.
It’s one of the things I would change about myself [along with chronic indecisiveness and my irrational phobia of bellybuttons] but I don’t know to go about it. Is there an online course to take? Are there evening classes at the local church hall? Do I do little warm-up emotional maturity exercises? Will I be assigned homework? And most importantly, do I get a certificate with gold stars when I graduate?
