Depression and digging

I'm not sure what I've shared here, but in my daily life I've been pretty open about my somewhat recent depression diagnosis and experiences with antidepressants. If you know anyone in your real life who struggles with depression give them a hug. What a maddening and misunderstood condition. 

I've tried a couple of medications, some more helpful than others, some with more side effects than others. It took darn near an entire month for my current medication to have any effect, but I am immensely proud of myself for sticking it out. I'm grateful for how helpful it's been since.

As far as I can tell I spent at least six weeks in a complete darkness, without a single positive emotion. It may have been closer to eight weeks. I did not feel any sort of goodness about anything for any length of time. It was not for lack of effort, it is just what depression can be. Even when I received some wonderful news one day and could intellectually say I was happy, I felt no happiness, joy, delight, or even a slight lessening of the pain, darkness, and frustration. That experience was a touchstone for me. Both grief and depression can make you feel awful crazy, but that day I knew it wasn't my doing. It was my brain being a real pain in the heart. 

I've been much more functional for a few weeks now. I make it to meetings. I get out of bed. I respond to work emails. I keep up with most things. Ty and I finished the school year. 

But...

You can't outrun your problems. You can't outwork your problems. It turns out you can't outmedicate your problems either. It's not as obvious as it sounds (especially considering the opiod epidemic in our country). 

I never expected an antidepressant to solve my problems. I hoped it could help me function. I hoped it could help me feel something besides the desperation of depression. It has done that and I'm massively grateful. I FELT hope when I had coffee with a friend this week. I don't take that for granted. 

But I realized the one thing the antidepressant doesn't do is provide any kind of relief to my discontent in life. I don't know why I'm here. Life seems to have very little purpose. I'm bobbing in an ocean, waiting for something to give. 

This is all wrapped up in my extended existential crisis. I joke about my EEC because what else am I going to do? Oh, besides devour articles, books, and podcasts... However, the tug holds fast. What is the point of all this? Why am I here? Why are any of us here? What is true? How am I supposed to keep living? 

There are no answers. Not in a pill or a bottle or a person or a job or a book or a song or an article or an author or a leader or in academia. Even though some of those are good places to look, meaning can be hard to come by. And yet I can't stop digging for answers.