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It’s that time of the month again, and I don’t mean my period. Depression, as I experience it, works like karma. For a month or two I’m happy, calm, stable, fun, and confident that I can take on all the curveballs life throws at me. Then the depression gets triggered by a minor disappointment, or something as arbitrary as the way shadows fall on a building. For about three to four weeks I move around in a zombie-like state punctuated by the occasional crying jag. Then, just as suddenly as the depression started, I bounce back into my “normal”, relatively happy self. Rise, wash, repeat.

At the moment I’m going through one of those downs and it’s gotten so bad that I actually cried in public no less than three times this week. My friends say they’ve seen me in worse shape before, so I guess there’s no reason for me to panic. It’s just one of those things I have to go through. Of course, it doesn’t make the present any less awful for me.

I noticed something interesting about this particular down though: my musical taste expanded to accommodate classic rock and folk music. Well okay, maybe it has something to do with the fact that the most depressing songs (in my opinion) fall under those genres. If you listen to most the sad songs made over the last five years, they’re usually about getting screwed over by love. Nobody sings about getting screwed over by life anymore. I don’t want to hear songs about getting dumped because I don’t have a broken heart; I have a broken soul. Or at least, that’s what it feels like. I wish I had a broken heart because at least I can point out where the problem lies. But I don’t even have the luxury of blaming some stupid boy for this horrible, inexplicable sadness I’m going through at the moment.

Because writing about depression is getting old, I figured I’d share what I think are the five most depressing songs I know. I’ve arranged them in ascending order, from the song that make me think about difficult but not entirely unpleasant things, to the song that I would most likely play whilst committing suicide, if I were actually suicidal. Which I am not.

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Last night I dreamt that all the 21-year olds in the world were struck by a debilitating disease that manifested itself as large, acne-like bumps on their skins that eventually erupted into itching, bleeding sores that spread all over the body as fast as ants can crawl. Once the body was covered in sores, the brain went next, bleeding out of both ears in gray and red wormlike chunks. As soon as the brain was done slithering out of ear canals, the person struck by the disease would be rendered incapable of speaking in coherent sentences. Then the person would commit beastly atrocities you’d never think any human being could be capable of doing. I can’t remember exactly what these atrocities were, although at some point I do recall feeling so overcome by a sense of horror that I couldn’t move a muscle even though I wanted so badly to scream and run.

I got the disease and I was panicking, crying, desperately searching for a cure because I was so so scared I’d turn into one of those moaning groaning monsters. I ran into my parents’ bedroom to ask for their help and nearly died of shock when I saw that they were covered in the scars from the red boils that once covered their clear, smooth skins. They had blood on their hands.

The disease, I was told, was called Growing Up. And there is no cure for it.

This was me yesterday, complete with the song playing on repeat in my iPod:

Lately I’ve been well on my way to burning out. I’m working my ass off like never before, driven by the need to earn money and spend it wantonly on travel and “useless” things. When friends invite me out I rarely ever say no (unless I really can’t stand you and I don’t even bother replying cos you’re not worth that one peso *HINT HINT*) because I worry that we’ll end up drifting apart if I don’t make time for them. During the rare instances when I get off work on time, I need to muster up the energy to row an invisible boat at the gym because all those hours sitting on my ass is making the fat accumulate in my midsection. If I’m not at the gym I’m rehearsing with the band, trying to think up ways to make our songs more striking and musically whole. My day’s far from over by the time I get home because I still have blogwork to do and friends I’d like to talk to and can only talk to on YM. If I’m lucky, I fall asleep 11 pm. The next day begins with my mom banging at my door at 5:30 am because I always sleep through my alarm.

Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth

At work yesterday morning I could feel myself slowly becoming unstitched. Despite 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep, I felt like I spent the night tossing and turning on a bed of sharp pebbles. I barely had the strength to get up from my seat to join my friends for our early morning procrastination rituals. I was so close to breaking down that if anyone came up to me and said the right combination of words (”Thank you, Thom Yorke for putting music into our depression.”), I would have exploded into a mess of tears and existential psychobabble.

I’m looking in on the good life I might be doomed never to find.

I’ve never been so exhausted before. Which is entirely different from being tired, mind you. Tired is the urge to just drop everything for good with a “Fuck it, I give up.” It implies a very strong sense of hopelessness. When one is exhausted, however, one simply needs a break from the Bundy clock of everyday life, a few hours to recharge one’s batteries if you may. At least that’s how I see it. There was just no way I could wait til the weekend for my break; I needed one now.

My opportunity came when a friend from the night shift said he and some friends were watching The Simpsons movie at noon and did I want to come along? At first I wasn’t sure because work means money, and money is always good to have. Then again, what good is money when you’re not in the right state of mind to enjoy it?

Without a trust or flaming fields, am I too dumb to refine?

So I clocked out at 11 am and walked over to Shang for an hour and a half’s worth of irreverent humor. I was a little relieved when everyone decided to head home and get sleep after the movie. The exhaustion was weighing me down, putting me in the worst shape to make the moves on my new crush (who was in zombie mode himself). Besides, I couldn’t get rid of this urge to withdraw from the rest of the world like a cranky old hermit.

And if you took to me like a gull takes to the wind

There was still an hour and a half left before my 3 o’clock appointment so I did something I haven’t done in months. I had one of those long meandering walks by myself, with my feet on autopilot and my iPod cutting me off from the rest of the world. For once I have never been so happy to be alone. I love spending time with my friends and meeting new people, but I’m still a social claustrophobic to some extent. Going on hermit mode was so refreshing that I kept it up all throughout the evening. I went on invisible on YM and spoke to no one (but Kristel just to let her know that I’m still alive, and the editor just so I don’t come off like an irresponsible douche), did my work, got a full body massage, read The Great Gatsby (which I bought during the long walk), fell asleep at 9 pm.

Well, I’d have danced like the queen of the eyesores

Sometime in the evening, the exhaustion metamorphosed into the flu and I woke up at 5 am with a high temperature and arthritic bones. It’s good to know that I’m just suffering from a virus of sorts and not a mental breakdown that’s starting to have physical manifestations. For once, I’m glad to be sick because it gives me a legitimate reason to spend the rest of the day and tomorrow in my room, drifting in and out of sleep with the curtains drawn. I think I need more alone time, and who knows when this opportunity will come again? Never mind that my absences are going to eat up a huge chunk out of my paycheck. By hook or by crook, I shall be back to my “normal”, sociable self and ready to rejoin the rest of the world by Friday evening.

And the rest of our lives would have fared well