Just a few years ago I was officially diagnosed with Dysthymia, which is sometimes defined as “a mood disorder consisting of the same cognitive and physical problems as depression, with less severe but longer-lasting symptoms.”

I no longer suffer from it. Well, actually I still do. But, the name of the condition has been officially changed to Persistent Depressive Disorder. With the new name, it’s a bit easier to understand. It’s very self descriptive now.

Why do I suffer from this? Is it genetic? Is it due to things that happened to me as a kid? Is it from my parents? If it is from my parents, again, I ask if it’s genetic?
Is it due to being bullied as a kid? Is it due to bad relationships? Did I allow myself to be bullied because I was verbally put down so much at home that I didn’t know I could stand up for myself? Was I in bad relationships because my parents didn’t set an example of one that was good? Maybe I was in bad relationships because it was all I knew? Is all of this my own fault?

I don’t have the answers to ANY of those questions, other than maybe the last one. I KNOW that not everything that I deal with is my fault. I know that there’s situations that I couldn’t avoid. I always feel that my quest for the answers is a source of more anxiety and depression for me. I don’t like when things don’t make sense. Much of my life doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand a lot of things about it. In fact, there are some things that I completely understand and they’re even bigger sources of depression.

Very often I feel like I’m a prisoner of my own life. And it’s a life sentence. There doesn’t seem to be a out of the bad situations. I keep trying different things and they all produce the same results. This is something that I will definitely dig deeper into in a future entry.

Happiness confuses me. I think I’m comfortable in my misery. I know that’s not a good thing, or is it? Can comfort be bad? There’s a difference between comfort and complacency. I think I’m more comfortable than complacent. I think…

I was about to say that I could easily tell stories about my parents and their impact on my mental health, but I really can’t. This entry originally had specific things in it that I’ve deleted. I guess there’s specific things I don’t want to talk about on here. Although, sometimes I wonder if it’s because I’m afraid that some people’s visions of my parents may change. I really don’t know. I keep wanting to delete this entire paragraph.

This entry is one that is giving me a bit of anxiety. Then again, most of my entries do. Part of my condition is a fear of expression. That’s something I definitely got from my parents. Not only did they not express themselves in a positive or constructive way, more often than not, they didn’t say anything at all until it all blew up. I want to delete this paragraph too.

I’m noticing a trend and I’m not just talking about my “breaking the 4th wall” in this entry. I’m noticing that I’m hitting a wall. It’s a big one. I need to find a way to chip away at it.

From September of 2010 until the end of June, 2012 I was seeing a psychologist once a week. I felt it helped me a bit, although now I realize that I really never scratched the surface of what my issues really were. I was just focused on what I was going through at that time. Although, I do know that it’s all related.

Part of the inspiration for this particular post is a documentary I watched last week. That documentary is called “Bipolar Rock N’ Roller” and it deals with one man’s struggle with mental illness. I became familiar with it because the subject of the film is Mauro Ranallo, and he’s currently a commentator for WWE, among other sports.
This is not the first time that something I’ve seen related to WWE has inspired me to write a blog entry about my own battles with mental illness. A few years ago, I watched a reality series that WWE produced and one of the stars of that show came out during one of the episodes. Even though his sexuality well known before that, the simple fact that he said it publicly impacted me. I saw a weight lifted off of him. It motivated me to write more about how depression burdens me and to share more details in this forum. Sometimes my sources of inspiration are not what many of you would consider conventional.

How does my story have anything to do with a Professional Wrestling commentator’s issue with Bipolar Disorder? It doesn’t. But, watching Mauro Ranallo so openly tell his story inspired me to get a bit deeper into mine. One day soon I hope to really get into details, because I don’t see a professional about my issue anymore. This is therapy for me. This is what I do for myself to get my story out. This is me unpacking my baggage, one blog entry at a time.