A Question of the Mind

One of the most frustrating things that can have me spiral into the darkness of depression the easiest–at least these days–is the impact depression has on my cognitive abilities.

Thoughts

The simple act of thinking, keeping a single thought focused, or paying attention to the thoughts of others can require a major expense of energy, a constant fight against my own mind just so my thoughts don’t go off into all directions at once. Thinking itself becomes fractured, and difficult to control. Depending on my mood, or how much, or what I have done through the day, the worse it becomes, and the more I have to tap into my grounding and relaxation techniques.

The most visible effect for everybody else is that my attention drifts away during conversations, or other activities. It’ll take a bit until I’ve caught up to my brain and can reign it in.

Speaking

The more stress I experience, the more difficult the world has become to deal with, even if the only that happens is the passage of time, the more deliberate I have to become before speaking, and even then, my brain and mouth conspire to make it difficult to get a sentence, or even a single word, out in one go. Sometimes, a calming breath is enough to get me back on track. Other times I need to find a different word that expresses the same thought or is at least close enough to work.

This instills an anxiety in me that makes it difficult to talk to people who don’t know me, and accepting this part of me is difficult, as it takes away the simplest, fastest, and most natural way for me to communicate with and relate to others. It is genuinely alienating.

Depression and anxiety are invisible, their symptoms and the struggles I deal with are not.