If I ain't got you

Depression is a really strange thing. No matter how many times or how hard I try to understand it better, it always has a way of taking a different turn that makes me throw my theory out the window. Depression can strike you at any time, if you suffer from it, and you won't know why it came, or if you even deserved it. It always just leaves me clueless and frustrated.

With me, I think the degree, or severity rather, of depression depends a lot on the type of food I eat. Because the condition (I rather call it that than a disease, cos it really is a medical condition or a mental state) is triggered when certain chemicals are lacking in the brain to make a person "balanced", and these certain chemicals are naturally produced by certain nutritional elements in food. For instance, I know that substances in oily fish help the brain to produce serotonin, which I need to keep balanced and happy. And other foods can make me lethargic and depressed. I'm not really certain which food combinations make me sad, but yesterday just out of the blue, I became so distraught I rushed out of the house, got in the car and just drove around crying.

My thinking is that when your state of mind is so out of control, try to take on an activity that gets you back in control. So I started driving. Cos when you drive, your brain needs to function, your eyes, hands and feet need to function, and even though your emotions are going haywire, your brain will definitely try to push that away in an effort to stay focused on the road, and slowly your body will take control again, and the sadness will dissipate. That is my theory, one of many... Anyway, I drove and drove, and tried not to drive aimlessly. So I headed towards my sayang's house, even though he hadn't picked up the phone when I called.

One of the reasons that got me into such a state was also due to that movie The Aviator, the one with Leonardo DiCaprio and the one where Gwen Stefani makes a cameo appearance, I have it on dvd 9. In the movie it shows Howard Hughes as being more than just a little eccentric, and it's obvious from the things that he did that he suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder and maybe some type of depression. He was such a genius though, and it's true that depression is a genius disease. My friend always said that depression is only a disease that affects really intelligent people, it's a disease of people that think too much. So yeah... whenever I see a type of pain I can relate to in other people, I get pretty badly affected without really knowing why. It's stupid really, but I can't control it. It gets to be really bad sometimes and then I can't even stand to finish watching the film, and I just swith it off. I've done that a couple of times with the Sopranos.

So this morning I woke up determined to push all this negativity out of my brain and took two spoonfuls of Scott's Emulsion (cod liver oil). And listened to Alicia Key's If I Ain't Got You on repeat. Because this is really my tribute to my bf and bestfriend--whom I'll always refer to as 'my sayang' here cos there isn't really a need to name names--and the love and patience that he's given me throughout each and every ordeal my depression throws at me. It's his perseverance in believing in me that makes me strong. He deserves a medal. My national hero. The Government of Nadja national hero. (",)