I have regular Depression. The kind of depression that makes taking a walk to buy a salmon rice bowl at Bristol Farms grocery store insurmountable, the depression that makes me cry at the theme song for “The Daily,” the depression that makes me feel like it’s necessary to post on my Instagram that I think Selena Gomez is the most annoying celebrity alive, which, of course is true, but not something a person of sound mind would take to the townsquare about. Despite that, my depression is a good hang. It does not ask for much. Sometimes I don’t even know it’s there with me until I am two hours into watching ASMR YouTube videos of barbershop head massages where the masseuse lathers a customer’s entire head in shaving cream. And then I find myself imagining how good it would feel to have my face and scalp completely covered in Barbasol that somehow calcifies and turns to a molted cone that I can live in from the neck up for the next decade.
My depression is low grade and slow burn. It plays second to my anxiety. It is more manageable, which sometimes makes its harder to contain. It’s slippery on radar, even with medication — the SSRIs that are working in tandem with my Propecia to both keep me on my axis. It’s a beautiful union. When I went on Lexapro, my doctor warned me it could cause erectile dysfunction. I had already been on Propecia at that point, which is historically feared for its potential libido destruction. It hadn’t claimed mine as a victim yet, so I welcomed the challenge. I am good at taking pills that someone I don’t know hands me. I am on three different SSRis now, and I am still horny. I have noticed a slight recession, though. I still watch porn on my Safari browser on my phone, in addition to scalp massage YouTube, but I don’t as much as I did. I can go days without it. And I’ve made peace with that. I would rather be cumless than see my hairline recede more. That is my wretched truth. I chose my hair before my mental health, initially, so I was par for the course. When my sister and I were children, our nana told us that we should always suffer for beauty. I listened.
We’re two days into Daylight Savings, which I had convinced myself Congress had somehow eliminated. It was up for debate, I know that. A bill was proposed, or something, to do away with falling back and spring forward. I guess I Mandela Effected this victory over man’s desire to control time because the bill didn’t pass. My regular depression is now waiting outside, holding its arms in the cold while my Daylight Savings Depression takes residence. This is a different kind of sad, a new unease The kind where I am convinced it will always be 3:30 PM. I am reduced to a silhouette for the winter. Daylight Savings depression is the star. The center. Your regular depression is its homely older sibling. Daylight Savings doesn’t just demand an audience, it pulverizes it. Just when you think you’ve found a way to undermine it, it surprises you. By Spring, you forget just how bad it is, and then it is here again, a familiar horror, blitzing you into submission. And then the night, crushing and silent. Winter darkness in LA is different than any place I’ve ever lived. Different in that it is worse. It gives you whiplash with its hugeness. Totals you.
You cannot process Daylight Savings, even if you can. It isn’t processable. It’s something you withstand and survive. It is unnatural and unrelenting. It It is sublime in the most terrible way. The deepest mauves and scalding yellows. And it’s getting worse. I am convinced of that. Somehow it’s getting darker every year. I don’t think it’s in my head. Maybe when Earth was knocked off its axis, it lost some time. The sun didn’t get dimmer, the world just threw some minutes away. I always forget that happened, by the way! They confirmed the earth is rotating off balance by two inches a year because Greenland is melting. It’s very lmao, right? The Arctic is turning into New Barcelona. There are mutant climate change mosquitos in Los Angeles. Mutant mosquitos are actually giving. The Earth not being on its normal rotation anymore because of us is serving cunt. I’m obsessed with the earth being shoved by humanity elbowing our way to the stage at a cosmic concert so we can be incinerated by the sun. We are slaying boots.
Except we’re on standard time now. 🫤 it’s the spring forward that puts us into DST. But your point is taken. Seasonal depression is a real thing, and if you’ve got the regular kind already, the sudden time change can be the kiss of death for SAD.
Our depression should be friends, very similar gals 💕