Interlude: Depression

Interludes are short segments between regular episodes with no editing but WITH leather creaking. It's a chance to hear a little more about what's going on in my life. In this interlude I discuss my recent experience with depression. Good news! I'm doing better.

Transcript

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Welcome to full carnivore podcast about leather kink and BDSM. My name is edge My pronouns are he him and I am your host. And this is another interlude in the episode between episodes offered raw and unedited. But with Langlands leather creaking, an opportunity for me to discuss a little bit about what's going on in my life at the moment. And I will admit, I had to think very hard about whether or not to make this particular interlude. Because what's going on in my life at the moment is that I have been dealing with some mild depression. And I started antidepressants a little over two weeks ago. And I hesitated to talk about this, in part, because, you know, this is my actual medical information. And I'm not sure I want to put it out there on the interwebs. But also, because I've tried to pry open a little bit of space between edge of this larger than life persona I embody on social media, and who I am as a person and in my private life, and sort of craft some spaces there to create a particular intimacy for people who are close to me, and to sort of protect parts of myself from that larger public performance. But I felt it perhaps was important to continue to normalize issues around mental health, particularly in the leather kink and BDSM community, and perhaps, particularly, for people who are in any way dominant identified. So I thought I would share what's been going on with me. You know, it started months ago, really, and I would say, February or March, maybe I started feeling not just physically tired. I feel like in this world, we're all always physically tired. But I started feeling like my spirit was weary, I was just losing steam on the inside. And I thought I just needed a vacation, and I had a beautiful trip to Ireland coming up. And so I just sort of kept chugging along, and I had a really fantastic time in Ireland. And as much as that enriched me as much as it filled my Well, the well, did not stay for very long. And in fact, as soon as I got back from Ireland, things felt worse quite suddenly. Part of that was I had COVID, very, very, very mild when I got home, I mean, so mild, I didn't even realize I had it until I accidentally thought to test. And COVID can be associated with some mental health issues. When I was talking to my doctor about it, she said she was seeing a lot of people with anxiety issues. So that's could be playing a role here. But certainly, it left me a little isolated because I was quarantining at home. But I don't know that that explains everything. What I noticed when I got back from Ireland is that increasingly, I just didn't want to be around people, I just didn't have the inner resources to be social in any way. Now, I'm an introvert. And this is in many ways, my default mode, I have to gather up energy to participate in social activities, like particularly parties are going out to the bar, I do pretty good one on one, and I stay until the energy is gone. And then I have to leave and I have to come home, home is my sanctuary. And when I'm home alone, or when I have a partner, if I'm home with my partner, that is when and where I can renew. So a lot of this wasn't in any way unusual for me at first, but it felt different. It felt more than just my introversion. And I also noticed that both at work and in the gym, I felt like I was going through the motions. I just didn't have any oomph. I didn't have any investment. There were days where I couldn't even get through an entire workout. At work, I kept the trains running on time, but I wasn't able to really initiate any new projects. And I spent a lot of time just sort of mindlessly looking at the Internet until it got to the point where I'd wake up, kind of get to the gym somehow do as much as I could, and go to work. Just wondering when I could come home and crawl into bed for a nap. So I was experiencing both an increased desire for isolation, a complete inability to kind of cope with people or social situations and a complete going through the motions. No, this is not my first time dealing with depression. I would not say I have chronic depression, fortunately, but I have had several periods in my life where have I experienced something similar? And I have decided to go on antidepressants of those times as well. This depression feels a little bit different to me, you know, it's not, I'm not sad. It's not like I can't get out of bed, it's not a sadness, it is an absolute blondeness every day feels blah, every day feels like something I just need to get through. But there's nothing at the end of it right, I get through it, I wake up, and I get through the next one. And that that just sort of felt really kind of empty, really kind of empty. And it's not that I didn't have moments of getting together with friends. It's not that I did have some moments where I get together with a boy. But overall, it felt very much like I had run out of some essential fuel inside and didn't have enough fuel to get to the fueling station. Like I didn't quite know what that substance was. Maybe it was joy, maybe it was connectivity, there was something that I just run out. And, and so I went to see my doctor, and we talked about it. And we decided for me to start antidepressants again. You know, when you start antidepressants, there's like a little bit of hopefulness. You're like, wow, I am doing something for my help. Wow, I'm going to get better. But if you've ever been on antidepressants, you know, the thing about them is that they take weeks, weeks to come fully online. And so now I'm in this particularly gray period, where everyday remains a trudge, and it remains a charge until the point where I know there will come a day when I wake up and I want to do something. I'm excited about the gym, or I want to go shopping or I want to do a video for Twitter, and there will be a come a day when I will want to do things again. And I will want to do things that fill my well. I will want to do Joy making things and things like the gym that are normally Joy making things will return to joyfulness I know that is coming. I know that for me antidepressants work. I know that it is just a matter of time. It's still it's not a great period, you know, the moment I started them. I knew I started at the right time because my depression actually felt a little bit worse, the past couple of weeks. You know, I haven't wanted to even put in contact lenses. I haven't wanted to trim my hair or beard. I just haven't wanted to do hardly anything. And it has been a particular chore for me to try and be social. In fact, it is Labor Day here in the United States. I'm recording this on September 5. And I was invited to a pool party this weekend. Now, pool parties are a big deal in Florida. They are the bread and butter of the social scene. And it was the first pool party I had been invited to all summer that really struck me. It struck me how disconnected I had become from people around Fort Lauderdale that no one had thought to invite me to a pool party. I didn't blame them. Right? I did. I did the disconnecting. So it was very important for me that I make this party because I didn't want to completely disappear off everyone's list. And I thought I thought wow, I've been on antidepressants, two weeks this, this will be great. I can go. And I went and I stayed for an hour. And it was hard. It was hard. It actually put me I pushed myself a little bit too hard. And I had a struggle bus kind of day, yesterday and part of today, of Sunday and part of today. And that's fine. That's fine. You know, I do what I can and I leave the less go. What's been really interesting about this whole experience, and one of the reasons I felt it important to share my experience in this venue is seeing how people in my life react to me telling them that I'm depressed. And I have so many loving people in my world. And I am so grateful for that, right. And I don't want to devalue that. Nor do I want to judge people's reactions. And it's not like their reactions have been wrong. It's just that a lot of times people feel this need to support me in ways that are counterproductive to my own continued healing. So, for me, since the manifestation of my depression is I don't want to get together with people, you know, people who really wanted to get together with me, because they heard I was depressed. That was not something that would have been really useful to me, I think coded behind some of the reactions I got from people, or perhaps some misunderstandings of depression. And I don't want to go into details about what their reactions were and why I think those are not appropriate for me, because they were all acting out of love and I don't want to call any of them out or make them feel poorly for the choices they made. I was simply say this, here's a lesson for you. If someone you care about someone, you know, someone in your life tells you that they are depressed, I find it most useful in my own experience to sort of ask them, How can I support you, and then do whatever the hell they ask. And sometimes that's check on me, sometimes that's I really don't want to be alone right now. And sometimes it's, you know, what, just give me some space. So I can move through this. So I really want to invite all of that. But I think part of the reactions I was experiencing, indicated what I would find, or what I would argue is partial cultural myth. You know, my understanding of depression is that it is a biochemical condition, my brain is not producing the proper amount of neuro chemicals, for me to be at a baseline, for whatever reason, and I could go into wall, you know, what may have caused this depression, I don't know that that's useful, because I don't know that undoing that cause would make the depression go away. At this point, I have a medical condition, and I need treatment, I need medical treatment. And I have my therapist, I've discussed this with my therapist. But I believe that sometimes we feel that depression is something that can be talked through. And I think that's true for when you're feeling down, or when you're really troubled. Or if you haven't, if you're anxious about something, and certainly all that's great. And I don't you know, that may be your manifestation of depression, it may be that you need to talk through things. But I know that for me, where I'm at with this particular flavor of depression, talking will not solve anything. Because talking is not going to alter the neuro chemistry in my brain, will will alter it are the medications I am taking, which eventually will raise those neurotransmitters to baseline for me. Now, you're listening to this, I believe, in October, if I have my schedule, correct, this should be the interlude for October. And my sincere hope and expectation is that by the time you're hearing this, I'm probably better. Because that's right around. I got about another two, three weeks before the antidepressant should be coming online. So the good news is that if you have any urge to help me, I think I've already been helped. I think I'm doing okay, and if not, I can tell you that I am at this moment in the future, talking to my doctor again about adjusting dosages. So the takeaways here are dominant, submissive, switch, whatever your sexual identity is, anyone, any one of us can get depressed. Depression can in times be an emotional situation, something very situational, something you're moving through and dealing with a grieving process, and those things perhaps will pass on their own. But I sincerely believe for myself, and I invite you into this belief that depression can also be an actual medical condition that actually requires medical treatment. At the very least, I think we need to completely normalize discussions of mental health. You know, kink is an extraordinarily powerful practice that actually can be so healing, and so good for our mental health. But we do encounter a lot of difficulties with our mental health as well, from our position as outcasts in society. Oftentimes, because kids wrapped up with different post traumatic behaviors from histories of abuse and trauma, then we carry a lot of mental baggage into the dungeon. And so I think our ability to normalize talking about that is is a way to really create better negotiations for scenes, better negotiations, and communication and relationships so that partners can understand where they are, and where they each need to be. And that's it for this interlude. I appreciate your attention and listening. That's valuable for me. And I'm, and it's a very good sign that I'm even doing this. This is the second interlude I have recorded today, the fact that I had the oomph to do something like this, to do something that in normal times would bring me a great deal of fulfillment and joy is a sign that I am moving in the right direction. So thank you all for being a part of my world. I hope you found my revelation and discussion useful, perhaps to connect your own experience or the experience of those who care for I hope as well that wherever you on your leather journey, you are making progress, and you have hope and that you are finding the things you need. So that's just another way of saying that I hope Your leather journey is always blessed