DIURNAL RHYTHMS

I don’t know about anyone else but usually I have screwed up diurnal rhythms, in short I feel like crap in the morning & gradually get better as the day progresses. I am like this all the time - well or not, during depressive episodes the crappy mornings just become……well, crappier. When I am well I can get myself up out of bed & off to work in the mornings, when I’m ill I can hardly move. I become literally psychomotorly retarded - everything becomes slow, my speech, my movements, especially my thought processes. In a way it’s like a protective mechanism, for if you are in a hyperactive agitated state plus suicidal that’s when depression becomes ‘deadly’ - that’s what happened to me on that morning of August 12.

I wrote the following poem when I was quite depressed & it uses an analogy between parasitic plants & how I often feel with my illness - desperately holding on to those around me who are stronger, leeching them of their life source.....their energy.