Depression and the Leaf
I am clinically manic bi-polar. It seems I have been so for some time now. I had alwayas thought of myself as just emotionally unbalanced. I have been pumped full of Paxil, Celexa, Zyprexa, Ativan, Valium, Xanax, etc. None work. But why don't they? Why am I depressed to begin with?
I am depressed when I get low votes on my WU's here. I am depressed when I get shot down in technical commitees that do not believe my presented idea holds any merit. I am greatly depressed when my fiancee decides to not spend time with me and do other things (which I feel are unimportant due to the fact that they are not dealing with me).
My depression is like an emtpy, thin vial. This is empty at first, obviously, but as depressing matters surface it begins to slowly fill up with this dark, melancholic liquid. The vial can remain at that level for many months, never evaporating the slightest bit. This personal vial of mine can only hold so much of this liquid before eventually spilling out. This is when tragedy hits; I have seen it spill out first hand.
First, the heavy vial falls to its side and begins emptying out all of its contents into one big stream. All of the bad memories and sad thoughts become one with the flow of this darkness. It enters my body similar to having your veins pumped full of an oil that cries. All the sorrow, that terrible, bottled up despair, finds places to stick-to inside my body, waiting for the rest of the liquid to find similar places. This is usually my heart...my most fragile of places. In fact, it is always my heart.
When the vial is completely emptied out within me, and all the sadness has found places to reside, the liquid begins its work. It's the gnawing and the clawing at me from inside that tells me I have gone past my limit. The tears begin like a hose left stranded in the desert, alone, constantly pumping water. Everything begins to have the tainted touch of black satin. From the radio to the TV, the liquid finds some way to use it to infiltrate me deeper and deeper.
When all is quiet and the effects have layed hands against my poor soul, I fall down into a dark void.
The last time this happened, I went outside for a casual cigarette to feel the warm night-winds of California. It is there that I first noticed something odd: a major part of a plant was dying and decaying away, though what was left was bright green. It wasn't withered or decayed. I began to wonder, does horticulture ever yield depressed plants that do not wish to live any longer due to their lack of fruits or blossoms that year? I know it may be silly to assimilate a plant's chemical makeup to that of a human's...though it was still interesting to me. I sat down and picked off a bright, green leaf to place in my palm. I had now taken something from it; I had taken one of its few remaining proofs of life. I stood up and stared at it. It changed in no way; no decaying, no browning, no signs of failure to live any longer. I brought the leaf inside my home with me and laid it upon my Wrought Iron clock's pendulum. I watched the leaf go back and forth. That small piece did not change in those few moments. It swung back and forth many times, each time coming into my view bright and green. Each pendulum swing caused me to excrete and dispell more and more of that vial's black liquid inside me. Finally, after a few more swings, my body was cleansed.
It remained green, so why shouldn't I?
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