Just had second appointment with new med provider.  Despite my pithy comments in a previous blog, he is clearly competent in a way that none of my previous drug connections were.   This guy is going to help me get better, come hell or high water.

I realized, leaving his building, that the prospect scares me almost as much as the idea that depression never ends.  Horrible, huh?  But it’s unfortunately true. 

Digging around on the inside, I realize that there are two reasons (thus far) why this is the case.  One is that once depression has left me, I’ll have to be competent again.  I try to imagine being able to do all the normal life things like have a job, take care of business at home, etc and I get scared.  I KNOW this is just a catch 22 in my brain.  I do not currently feel competent, so the idea of being expected to be competent is freaky.  Clearly, these expectations (and you know I’ll be the first one shouting at myself to get a move on) should not come about until I’m ready to meet them.  But until I am ready, the mere idea fills me with dread.

The second issue is more mundane.  I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up!  I absolutely know I won’t be returning to my previous profession, or anything like it.  I’m not overly endowed with marketable job skills, and I’m not certain what kind of job I’ll be able to handle…or if it will pay the bills.  Usually, my response to this is to downsize my life to fit the job, but the mere idea of doing what that takes this time (for example….sell the condo?) fills me with terror.  (See above for terror source!) 

These fears, of course, are well designed to create guilt.  Don’t want to get better?  What kind of a lazy punk am I?  Well, I do want to get better, truthfully.  I’m just afraid of not being enough to meet the process.