Is it your depression or reality?

This is quite a complex subject which has been discussed in conversations with my partner, Iza. Some situations occur where I am not sure if my depression is making the decisions or is the situations which are causing me to be depressed and react in uncharacteristic ways. I hope this makes sense.

The reason I ask is: one day in particular became steadily worse as it went on. Me and my partner were edgy with each other, as we usually are but something was different. There was a double edge of non-communication and frustration that we both hadn’t picked up while visiting friends. The night was ok and fun, but as we arrived home we were having heated words.

How I feel right now is, my depression is causing my mind to over think, over react and generally mix feelings and thoughts up. Which I understand and deal with best I can, but there is another issue which is when does the depression mess up reality.

When you are on your own and not in a relationship, if you get things wrong – no one see it. No one gets hurt and you can learn and move on, but if you are in a relationship there is a whole other, more complicated, level of emotional information for you to deal with. This can be a kaleidoscope of visuals in which to distort the reality. This can come in the form of lack-of-understanding, your past, your childhood, if you were bullied . . .the list goes on. It’s a filter in which you perceive the world. And most of those things could be the reason you have depression in the first place.

The day I am talking about started quite strangely. I woke after having a dream about my Nana (Grandma) having all her possessions burnt in a fire at her home.The dream was vivid enough to chat about and affect the beginning of my day. In the dream I blamed myself for the fire but as I was just about own up to it, my uncle came in and admitted it was his fault. It may not sound tragic or upsetting but it was at the time. I very rarely dream or think of my nan, as life just gets in the way and most of the time my head is mashed bananas with my illness.

However, I do light a candle in every church I visit as a way of remembering her and my granddad, who passed a couple of years before her.

The dream and subsequent conversation made me realise how fragile life is and that we don’t have a lot of time to get it right, make our mark and be happy. We don’t have the most amount of time to show everyone who we have cared about how much they mean to us.

I began this day depressed with that thought and it held on to me all through the day. I couldn’t shake it.

I was looking forward to spending time with my partner and doing something together, but at some point in the day the situation changed. Now I am not very good when it comes to things being changed at the last minute. Especially when other people are concerned, I have to go through a process of planning an emotional map of what’s to come, in my head, so that I don’t just end up a moody mess and upset people. This added to the way I was feeling and made it worse. I began to act oddly and then my mask of humour came out which wasn’t received as well as I had hoped, and again, this added to the uneasiness of the day.

As I have mentioned, it ended as strangely as it had began.

I feel my filter of depression did cloud my reality of the day and I reacted in a negative way to what had happened, spending the later evening sulking and generally being insular and dismissive.

I spend a lot of time thinking about starting my day happy and ending my day happy. It’s so difficult sometimes. I have have mentioned; if you are on your own no one sees it, but when your partner is there to witness your mood, it’s a whole different emotional reality to deal with.

Sorry for going on, I just wanted to write this and see if others have a similar experience.