The New Normal is Anything But

The last time I looked at the clock this morning it was 1:15 am. When I awoke it was 4:45 am. 2 hrs 30 mins of sleep and that after having taken 150 mgs. of the sedative Trazadone. This is the new norm. This is what accounts for sleep with me. A great night's sleep is 4 hrs.

I now move through the world in a state of constant exhaustion. Couple this with the dulling effects of my meds. and you can understand why my 2 year old son heart breakingly asks me on an all too regular basis if I'm OK. My eyes are darkened by heavy bruise like bags. I'm graced with the presence of a near constant head cold. I ache deep down. I wonder if this is not totally unlike being elderly. I have sought the positive in this new schedule. Think of how much one could accomplish with so much time during the day! How many people begin working in their yards at such an early hour!  How many people have had their fill of coffee before the sun rises!

There are days when I do indeed make the most of the long hours. However, those days are far too rare. Mostly I sit here staring at the window, watching the clock while cursing my twisted circadian rhythm. I am growing as  accustomed as one can I suppose. My wife and child suffer more from this new development in my life as a depressive far more than I. When they rise I've often been awake for several hours. The last thing I am is cheery. My beast is of a kind that when fully active somehow makes me the center of the universe. My family must act and react to me. In the morning they must pull me into a world that for the past several hours I have been receding from. My son is not met by hugs upon his waking. Rather he wakes to find his father laying motionless on the couch. He must all but beg to be acknowledged. How troubling this must be to the the two year old mind. My wife wakes and talks only to hear herself talk as my answers are mostly head nods in the positive or negative.  I am becoming a shell of a shell, my former self is all but lost to me now.

This loss of self is for me the most despicable element of my disease. I am constantly being deconstructed by my depression and never is the new self in any way better than the former.