No One Said It Would Be Easy

Seeing as I have been sick and on tour, it has been a while since I posted. I have decided that I will save the tour post until after choir tour and combine them. Because of this, I have decided to run through yesterday as it happened after school.

I talked with some friends after school for a while. Somehow I ended up feeling more alone then I had before, so I decided to leave. On the drive home I listened to Feel Good Ghosts, an excellent album by Cloud Cult, a band that each one of you should check out if you haven't already. This is a great album that I consider to be very spiritual, I will add one of the songs on this album at the end of this post.

After this lovely listening, I arrived at home and took a tasty hour-long nap until I had to wake up for my psychiatrist appointment. I got to my psychiatrist appointment and went on in to his office. We talked about a lot, I'll see what I can remember. We went through the classics. He asked me how I have been doing this past month. I told him that I was pretty good on tour, but before and after I was about the same as I have been for a long time. He asked me why I seem to be so much worse when I'm home. This is interesting. I couldn't really answer. The only thing I could really say was that tour is the perfect combination of God, service, and music. He asked me if I'm suicidal. I believe I responded, "I don't particularly want to live, but I don't want to kill myself". I'm sure we talked about some more subjects, but this is what I remember. Then he brought my mom in and she agreed that I haven't been doing any better. He then said that he will double my prestiq dosage.

After this I went home and showered, and then drove out to Oak Park for my Mission Year interview. It was pretty much what you would expect. The part that relates to this blog is that I had to talk about my depression. This was weird for me. I basically had to say things that I knew would hurt my application. I hadn't really thought about how these two things would interact. It was interesting to really realize that I will be away from my closest friends and not be able to talk to them very much for a year.

Anyway, I'm leaving for choir tour tomorrow and very worried about being lonely the whole time. Please pray against loneliness on my behalf. Here's the song as promised.

Please Don't Stop the Music

I love music.
I legitimately considered stopping the post right there, but I guess I should continue. Music takes me away from depression. Although the wrong song can dig me deeper in, the majority of music is one of the only remedies I have found. Listening to music takes me to another place. That's why I posted that Noah and the Whale song on my last blog (read it if you missed it). I also love watching live music. It doesn't even have to be good. I just appreciate people stepping out and giving a piece of them for me to experience. I feel connected to live music in a profound way.

Finally, of course, there is the actually performing of live music. Oh man does this change who I am. I feel like I can be whoever I want when I play music, especially live. It's an amazing feeling, more so, from my experience, for someone with depression. I live my day to day life under oppression by depression (intentional rhyme) not able to be who I want to be, and then all of a sudden that burden is lifted. Music allows me to be anyone that I want to be. For just a little while, I don't have to deal with the crap in my life, or if I want, I can use music to help me deal with the crap in my life. It's awesome, and definitely God given.

I felt this a lot last night at the coffee house. It was like I was a different person. I had courage to get on the mic and tell everyone to be quiet. I played with several groups. I really listened to everyone who played and thoroughly enjoyed it. I sang in front of a good number of people with real emotion for the first time in a while. This took me away from everything. I danced like there was no tomorrow and probably looked like an idiot, but didn't care. It was the freest I have felt in a very long time. I even was able to sing a song that I really connect with for what seems like a different reason every time. I'll add it at the end of this post. Normally I connect with it because of the stuff about my dad, or the time I sat out on the deck with my friend all night, but this time I asked Colin if we could sing it because of how alone I felt. It was a really good thing for me to sing (I'm sure you'll see why as you listen to it).

Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed the performance! I sure did. Please feel free to leave comments on here or on my facebook as always, I really appreciate everyone that has taken the time to read these and get to know me a little better. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to practice honesty in a real way.

The Thick Blanket Returns

I can't really talk about what happened, but I just wanted to say that last night I got a lot more depressed. It has a root of loneliness. I feel so alone now, and I'm realizing that it's not up to me to fix that. This sucks. I can't make myself less alone. It's up to other people and, ultimately, God. I'm so scared that God is going to keep me alone. I finally started to feel like I wasn't going to be alone and then, in an instant,  I reverted back to what I always go back to. I am alone; at least in this world. This is probably my biggest fear, and it is being realized. I don't want to have to rely on God for everything. I want to be close to people and rely on them, even though time and time again I see that they are unreliable.

I went to bed and woke up this morning depressed. I don't know how to explain it, but I guess I should try. It's this unidentifiable sadness. It's more than not wanting to do things. It's a thick blanket over everything about you. I feel hopeless. I feel worthless. I am overwhelmed. It takes over all of my being, I am completely and totally sad. It isn't something that I can control. When I try and talk about it, I feel like I'm about to cry. This is a lot like what happened in my government teacher's office. It's coming to an understanding that I have been depressed, am depressed, and will be depressed until something changes. I feel like the earthly part of me just keeps thinking that I'll be fine once I find a real "best" friend. I need to stop relying on this and realize that God is the only way that I can be with someone and not alone.

Here's a song that for some reason has been really good for me lately, it's by an awesome band you should all listen to. They have good sad music and good happy music. This is a nice blend of the two.

Choked Up

I realize I haven't given an update lately so I think I'll go ahead and fill you guys in on the last week.

The day after my last post my dad had a grand mal seizure. That means that it wasn't little, but in my opinion it wasn't as bad as the one last May. I was very calm throughout the process. My mom woke me up and I waited five minutes and then called the paramedics because I remembered them saying to do this last time he had one. I went to the hospital and sat with my parents in the ER. I was supposed to have a meeting with my mentor about whether or not I should go to bonnaroo so I went to school and met with him and stayed for percussion. Obviously we talked about a lot more than bonnaroo given what had happened.

I thought that my big struggle with this whole ordeal was just going to be understanding that God is good all the time(all the time God is good). So I wrestled with this a lot and am still wrestling with it. However that has turned out to be not the biggest setback coming from this event. My depression has come on quite strong as of late. I have been significantly less motivated to do anything, especially homework. I haven't been taking care of myself hygienically and have been eating only when fed, never making my own meals. Two days ago I went home halfway through the day because my depression started to make me feel physically ill and the combination was too much to handle. Most of all I haven't been able to do homework. This semester I have been doing very well at getting just enough motivation squeezed out to complete the homework that I need to do, but this past week I shut down.

Instead of letting it snowball any further, like I did last year, I went and talked to my school's counselor yesterday. This was a big step for me because it took initiative to say that I was getting more depressed and to get help for it rather than let it grow into something unmanageable. After talking with my counselor, we decided that she would email all my teachers and I would talk to the ones that I was having trouble with. My most overdue assignment is a five paragraph essay for my government class. For some reason this paper has been giving me a lot of trouble. I can't really figure out why, but my mood just never agrees with doing the paper.

After several minutes of fighting myself back and forth on whether or not to talk to my government teacher, I decided to go to his office and tell him about my depression. I told him that I struggle with it and that I'm really trying to get this paper done, but it just hasn't been working lately. The weird part about this though was that I started to tear up. I had trouble talking, my voice choked up, all the classic pre-cry events took place. This was extremely abnormal. I cannot remember the last time I cried. It is not something that I really ever do. After thinking about it, I think that my reason for crying was that some part of me realized that after two years, I am still dealing with this. It still defines so much of what I am. This is really annoying and fairly discouraging, and I guess hit me a lot harder than I thought it would.

Well That's my week. If there is anything you want to know more about please feel free to comment or talk to me and I will be happy to elaborate. Just glad to have another opportunity to be honest about what's going on.