At What Point...

...does it stop being a bad week and start being depression?

I consider myself a normally optimistic person. I tend to deal well with a busy schedule, not enough sleep, and a heavy workload. I find ways to intersperse school work with drawing, or writing, or watching TV, or going out for coffee with friends. Whenever something bad happens, I find some bright side. --I have another person to accompany, but then I can't go to the lessons of different vocalist so I can take on more work. My wrist gets tired, but I'm doing physical therapy to make it better. I had to get up early for what turned out to be a cancelled lesson on Saturday, but then I went downtown and had breakfast at the Bagelry. You get the picture.

For whatever reason, the last two weeks have not been so optimistic. I think it started right before my busy midterms--I had to sacrifice some things (English reading) to make room for other things (time-consuming theory assignment), had lessons that left me feeling panicked and like some kind of accompanist failure ("Your problem is that you're trying to play all the notes. What do you mean, you don't know which ones to leave out? You've never tried? Not even once? What are you going to do if you have to play this twice as fast as you just did?"), had schoolwork piling up behind hours of practice I needed to catch up on, was too depressed to devote myself to much practice, felt ignored and neglected and walked on, and most of all couldn't--can't--fight back the stifling sense of helplessness, grief, fear, loneliness.

It's better when I'm around friends. Then my mind is off of all this and I can focus on whatever they're talking about. They might ask me what's wrong, but I can barely vocalize it; how do you explain all that in some kind of neatly-wrapped package? How does "I'm stressed out" cover "What if I can't make it doing my dream major" and "Why don't you really care how my day went when you ask?" and "Twice today I thought about making this all go away."

You can't. So I smile and shrug and say "Fine," because it's easier. And no one wants to hear all that, anyway. What do you tell someone who says that? "It'll be okay, just hang in there." That's not enough.

And yes, when I'm around people--in Ear training being silly, in English discussing oppressed women, in my lesson playing a concerto--I'm okay.

But as soon as I'm by myself, walking to class or my room or the next thing on my schedule--as soon as I'm alone with my thoughts, all this comes rushing back and I have to swallow and try not to cry, because people might actually stop and ask questions. I hate being vulnerable, even with people that I trust. I cry to myself and no one else. That's why I pair "I'm having a lousy week" with a shrug, because that gives some semblance of the idea that I will get over it. But it's almost a reflex, because right now it's really difficult for me to believe that.

So, what is this? I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm lost in the dark. I don't even know where to turn. Walking out of the PAC tonight, I stopped and looked out over the bay, barely visible but for the reflections in the dark, and wondered what it would be like to jump off the dock, flounder for a minute--I've never been a good swimmer, if even a passable one--and then breathe in icy salt water, choke, fade...

I couldn't do that. I have too much at stake here, too much that I've worked for and established just to leave it all behind like another tragic statistic, you know-- X% of college students commit suicide every year. But the fact that I thought about it scares the shit out of me. That's where I start wondering where this went from "midterm stress" to "borderline suicidal."

I just need it all to end. That's all.