I’m not a good pet owner. I’m not one of those horrible people who keep their dog chained up outside in horrid conditions or try to force their cat to eat vegan, but recently, after spending some time with people who know much more about dogs and cats, I’ve been made aware of how mistaken my view of what a “pet” really is.

It’s human tendency to see things as being like us. We mistake a shadow in our bedroom for a person, we see a face on Mars, and we understand dogs and cats to just be small, stupid, furry people. At the same time, we also tend to see them (and all animals, really) as appliances, as things that we obtained for a purpose. In reality what we have is a life: a complex nervous system with pattern-based learning and reward systems, fully capable of being effected by trauma.

A common theme on Tumblr (where this block originally started) is to “glorify” mental illness; to make it something that is “weird” and thus is desirable, a way to be considered unique in society, perhaps. They self-diagnose and create blogs dedicated (in partial or full) to their depression and mental illnesses, treating it like a fandom for some TV show instead of a true illness.

Every time I try to describe my lack of motivation to other people, it’s amazing how I always see the same look of a lack of understanding. They just have a hard time comprehending not having the drive to do critical things. And I can’t say I understand it fully either. All I know is that something just isn’t there. It’s not a case of not wanting to go to work on a Monday, it’s having no desire or drive to brush your teeth, or eat, or even take your daily meds, even though you understand that there will be consequences. It’s a bit like hunger, in that you don’t decide to be hungry, you check what your body is telling you. You don’t decide to have a base level of motivation, you just have it. Or you don’t.

The hope when starting this tumblr is that, in some way, it would help me. One way is that I find that the process of writing down a problem causes me to think about it in ways I perhaps wouldn’t have.

Like I’ve realized recently that a lot of my struggle comes from me trying to please the “Stranger”; this hypothetical onlooker who will judge me or my actions.

I’ve always thought that this was a good thing, because it makes one very careful of what one believes. When you start to accept something, the Stranger chimes in, purposefully trying to find a way that what I’m accepting is completely wrong. The end effect is that I feel as though I’m able to view most things from more than one point of view. Perhaps not all of them, but at least multiple. This does, however, severely limit what I believe concretely; nearly everything is up for debate with the Stranger.

It’s crazy because if you asked me “What’s the one thing that defines your life up to this point?”, my answer -since I was about 16- would be “depression”. And yet I still, roughly 10 years later, have some feeling of doubt about actually saying that I have “depression”.

I think that part of it is that the words are used far more loosely than, say, physical illnesses. It’s not uncommon for people to say “I’m feeling depressed this week” or “I’ve been feeling anxious lately”. That’s fine because it’s just how language is, but I would definitely say there’s a difference between that and living with depression or anxiety.

It’s only recently I’ve realized just how menacing the combination of Depression and Chronic Fatigue is for me.

Chronic Fatigue, I think, is always difficult. But I think that maybe people with a greater drive might be able to fight through it more. Much of the attempted remedies I’ve done require a ton of motivation with the biggest one being massive diet changes. Trying to go through the process of researching, then planning, then grocery shopping, then preparing food on a regular basis (likely every day) while having no energy and/or losing tons of time to sleep is just plain miserable. And simultaneously, you’re constantly looking for other possible remedies, going to doctors, taking new supplements, trying to exercise regularly, and pushing yourself physically to get all it done. Anybody’s endurance would be tested, I think.

But imagine throwing in depression, which has a primary symptom being “loss of interest/motivation”. It’s no wonder I’ve failed time and again when trying to follow the remedies. It goes from me having stints where I am not motivated enough to take my antidepressants (very dangerous) to now trying to take more medicine daily, sometimes several times a day. From sometimes skipping meals just because I don’t feel motivated enough to eat to trying to cook daily with new foreign ingredients.

I think the combination is nasty regardless of which came first, but for me, I had depression first, and while I felt limited in many ways, I at least felt like I had some mobility. It’s like I was a roommate with a complete slob, but I at least had a car. Then Chronic Fatigue came along and the car broke down, and now I’m stuck with the slob all the time, and I have absolutely no idea how to fix the car.

I like to describe depression as being forced to hang out with someone you hate, only that someone is yourself. The type of person that, when you see them, you tense up a sigh and whenever they talk, you inwardly cringe.

A while ago I watched a special by comedian Mike Birbiglia where he talks about his blog “My Secret Public Journal” which his therapist told him to start to “put it on paper” for things in his life that bothered him. That’s basically what this blog is, though probably going to be way less funny.

Instead of stories about sleepwalking and whatnot, I’ll be talking more about depression, anxiety, and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). That might not sound like the most attractive thing to read, but that’s why this is a Journey to the Center of Self. It’s more or less a voyage of self discovery, with my thoughts on what defines me (which, at the moment, is those three things more than anything else).

You can make of it what you will. I’m not writing to define how things are for everyone nor am I trying to tell people how to get better. I’ll be sharing various treatments like Somatic Experiencing and EMDR and other (attempted) remedies for CFS, but a month later I may make a post saying I was wrong. It’s a journey and I’ve always had a poor sense of direction.