Why can't I just let me be?

Being married to me must be exhausting, I told my wife.

No, she said, being you must be exhausting.

Sometimes it is.

The subtle mood swings. The nagging anxiety. The utter inability to just be... It is all so damn tiring sometimes.

My moods can swing like a heavy pendulum from happy to depressed, content to crazy, in a morning, much less in a week.

My current meds are working, for the most part. Beaten down and gaunt from the weight loss, I crawled out of the darkest, deepest and most dangerous depression of my life this summer.

Those fleeting impulses to say to hell with it all are fewer and farther between now, but consistent contentment eludes me still.

I am restless. They say Abilify can make you feel that way. But it may have saved me, so what to do? Flush the pills down the toilet and risk slipping back down that slippery slope into a pool of misery?

No! I can’t do that. I have to stay the course. I have to try again tomorrow. I have to do all the things my therapist is telling me to do but for some reason I don’t.

I have to remember my job is just a job. It’s what I do, not who I am.

I have to try harder to stop the negative thoughts when they start.

I have to go back to giving five minutes at the start of each day to my Higher Power and asking Him for help.

I have to learn to just be.

Oh, how I wish it were that simple.