This weekend I was really depressed. I want to write about this, openly, because I feel like there's such a stigma around depression and anxiety. It's hard, to write openly about. Even writing on this blog, I worry that maybe some future employer, or future girlfriend, will read this and get nervous or scared. But I guess, at the end of the day, one of the things I've figured out is that people that can't deal with someone having feelings are people I don't want to be involved with anyway. And I think it's important, just to be open about feelings, even when they're not the ones we want. I'm depressed, and that's part of who I am. It doesn't define me, but it's in there somewhere. Part of the show.
One of the things I realized this weekend is that, someplace deep down, I'm still trying to win the approval of my parents. My parents were emotionally unavailable. They just didn't tell me very often that I was a good person, and more importantly, they didn't like talking about emotions, especially the "bad" ones. I deeply wanted their approval - as all kids do - and I rarely got it. So, as an adult, I seek out emotionally unavailable people, and try to win their approval, as if by doing so I can prove to myself that I'm a good enough person to get my parents to love me. Sometimes, it even works, and I win that person's approval for a while, and of course I immediately get addicted to that approval; I crave it. At some point, either because that person gets creeped out by my addiction, or because they are, you know, emotionally unavailable, the approval stops coming, and like an addict, I get increasingly desperate for it. The withdrawal, when it leaves, is crushing. And then I start the cycle back up, looking for the next person who can give me my fix. Oftentimes, it's attractive women of the type that ayurveda would call "vata"; the wind type, people with their own anxiety, people who are - often unintentionally - self-centered and full of themselves. I don't know if it's fair to say that they're bad people, but it's definitely true that they're unhealthy, especially for me.
The larger point is: it's OK to be depressed. It's always OK. It's never bad. It's not desirable, maybe, or something to seek out, definitely, but it isn't bad, and it doesn't make you a bad person. It's important to get to the bottom of it, but it's nothing to be ashamed of.
