That soft and sick funny little feeling

Something that needs to be acknowledged is that I do get sad.
Especially if I am going to teach, I should try and know what it is that makes me sad so as to grasp it by the feet and fling it elsewhere or otherwise hold up a shield and deal with it later.

I promise myself that I will always try and be practical about sadness, because I actually have that choice. I used to allow myself to become engulfed in emotion, but now I sort of just let myself live with it. Fighting it is exhausting and bewildering (what is the cost of losing in a fight against yourself?), ignoring it is not possible at times. Those are choices that I can make, but I know that the most sensible, life-preserving choice is to know how I feel and know that I won't always feel that way.

When it's extreme, I feel unsure of what to do. And it's bizarre because I also love that sort of low, even if it's hard and lonely and generally difficult to understand, because I can tell that when I'm not like that, I will be capable and calm and awake and generally quite good at the things that I want to do. I don't feel that my sadness is something that always defines me, only sometimes does it define my outlook.

I wish it was easier for people to talk freely about mental illness. My friend Seema is creating a space for expressing mental health problems, from my understanding offering creative non-fiction stories from other peoples lives as well as all kinds of positive support not only about depression but wider social issues and actions that we can take. She says it is hard work creating a support network like that, I don't doubt her, but I know that work isn't for nothing. Hearing other peoples stories is a supportive and constructive thing.