It’s difficult to explain a bad brain day to a non-depressed person. They usually want to know what went wrong, what caused you to have a bad day. The thing is, I can’t usually answer that question.

I mean, yes…some days go to shit for very specific reasons that you can point directly to. And lots of days just kind of bob along in that nebulous area between “ok” and “not ok”.

But when you’re dealing with depression there are also these days that are just…bad. The things you normally get done with no problem become an epic struggle. Stuff that usually amuses you or cheers you up just serves to remind you of how fucking miserable you are. It could be perfect weather, your spouse could make you the best breakfast, you could have the most traffic-free commute to work while all your favorite songs played on the radio…and the day would still be shit, because your brain just isn’t cooperating.

Hence, bad brain day.

Today was one of those days for me.  I woke up in a fine mood, had a nice breakfast with my husband and my dog, got ready for work, and everything was copacetic. I was fine for about the first hour of work and then it just hit me out of nowhere.

First I was annoyed by someone not responding to an email in a timely fashion. Which, that seems semi-reasonable at first glance but the degree of my annoyance was WAY disproportionate to the importance of the issue the email dealt with. Like, if emails were gambling and I was mad about losing money, I was in the “I just lost $200” range when really the email was only worth about $5.75. Which made more sense in my head, but whatever.

Then I started berating myself for being mad about the email, followed swiftly by berating myself for berating myself (I KNOW…welcome to my world). Within minutes things had snowballed to the point where I was hiding in the bathroom because I couldn’t stop myself from crying.

What was I actually crying about? Existing, basically. That’s about as close as I can come to an honest explanation. It’s not even that I don’t WANT to exist. I do! I like existing! BEING ALIVE IS RAD! It’s just that sometimes it hurts simply to exist, let alone actually get anything done or have any kind of meaningful interactions with the world.

On days like this about the best I can do is let myself have a crying jag or two (or ten, ugh), try to get on with what needs doing afterward, and hope that tomorrow my brain gets back with the program.

How do YOU describe your bad brain days, your down days, your hide-in-the-bathroom-at-work days to others? Do you have some kind of code word or phrase you use to clue your loved ones in to the fact that you’re in a bad place? Talk to me, Goose.

Err…Geese, I guess, since there’s more than one of you…