I was once told that “if you think you’re depressed, you’re probably not depressed”.
What a crock of shit, right? I know I’m depressed, I’ve suffered with depression most of my life, it was only a few years ago that I realized what it was – and I was finally willing to get help for it. I started taking medication instead of going to a therapist because I thought that just talking wouldn’t do anything and at the time I desperately needed to do something. Drugs seemed to be the lesser of two evils at the time. I was on increasing doses of anti-depressants for about 3 years, until they just didn’t work anymore. I’m not only depressed…
I have depression – severe at times to the point where I do not want to get out of bed, ever. But being that I’m alone and forced to fend for myself I’ve not been able to not get out of bed, so I thought I was functional. I wasn’t. Along with depression, I have delusions, paranoia, warped sense of being and thinking, low self-esteem and pretty bad social anxiety. I am also apt to being a recluse, my introverted self wins out a lot. I know for people that meet me don’t think I’m shy or introverted – I’m lying. I have to act this way to function as an adult – I have to be able to talk to people at work or if I want to keep friends or even dare, make friends. I need to seem like I am normal. It’s only later that everyone finds out I’m a big fat mess. You may think, if I can pretend so well (do I really?), why not just be that way? Because while I’m smiling and talking and being social on the outside, inside my head I’m screaming for it to be over and it’s no reflection on the company – it’s all me being uncomfortable.
I am not bi-polar, I never have an up or high, I’m always sad. I am also predominantly apathetic, I rarely feel joy or excitement, it’s either apathy or debilitating sadness no matter how much I want to be happy. I know I should be happy in situations (like all through my weight loss), but I wasn’t, I didn’t feel anything, that’s a problem. I also suffer from seasonal affective disorder, and as a depressed person to begin with I get it pretty severely.
People who aren’t depressed, or at least don’t admit that they are, do not understand any of this. They don’t understand why you can’t just stop. And believe me, I’ve tried to stop – it’s logical. I’ve been off medication and in therapy for over a year now, and I have come leaps and bounds from where I was a year ago. Maybe eventually I’ll have to do both. But this is a constant struggle, it never ends. You take 2 steps forward, then something triggers and you take 10 steps back. Vicious. Cycle. I struggle every single day to fight against my automatic responses. I fight every day to be better than the day before, and life knocks me around pretty hard, pretty often – almost constantly. I’ve had so many disappointments this year that it’s overshadowed so much of the good that’s happened. The sadness overtakes me and blankets me in chokehold I can’t break free of.
Remember when I was on my quest for Onderland? It all fell apart. I had a severe bout of depression beginning in October of last year followed by an unbearable winter, crippling driving anxiety, lack of motivation, and I lost my drive. I had some really terrible shit happen the beginning of this year – lost some really important relationships I didn’t anticipate to (mostly due to my depression – and the inability to stay functional), and it all fell apart. I can lie and pretend that it doesn’t still affect me – but it does, in a way that is hard to get past, can’t get out of my head.
However, I’ll tell you what I didn’t do. Thanks to therapy – I didn’t have another full-on, all-consuming mental breakdown. I was really sad, that never stops – but I didn’t crawl into a little ball in the corner of my room and cry for a week straight. I keep going, keep living, keep fighting on significantly lower cylinders, but I try. I have to realize that not everyone can handle my illness – hell I can’t even handle it sometimes, but I just have to be ok with knowing that people find me off-putting, or selfish, or crazy, or over-emotional or an asshole because I suffer from this disease and it would rather be looked at as an excuse than an actual illness. I get it, I do – I’m just lazy and I make excuses, I also deal with the demons in my head that nag at me at all days, minutes, hours, seconds, years, always – and yeah sometimes I give in. And some can say that every human has these demons, but they don’t let it get them down. Hey, good for you, that must be awesome, what’s that like?
When I get into my ‘funks’ I do everything wrong. I lack focus on the good and only regress to the bad. Why do I do that? It’s my comfort zone – it’s where I live, it’s where I think I belong and it’s how I cope with all the sadness. Is that right? NO, it’s the worst thing I can do – but with the sadness come the exhaustion and the desire to do yet another thing that’s really hard is nearly void. Everything is hard, every thing is so hard – and guess what, I get to do it completely alone. If I had help, maybe things would be less hard, but I don’t have help, so giving up the hard things makes one less thing hard I have to do, but this is completely counterproductive. See – vicious cycle.
And believe me, whatever you think of me, I think of me, but like 1,000 times worse than you can ever imagine. And yeah I wanted to give up a million times, but where I’m crazy in one way, I’m crazy in this way – I always have HOPE. Hope that one day, somehow, some way, it will get better. I can now see that it can get better; it can’t go away, but it can be better and I’m working to make it be better longer. And I have to let go of anyone who doesn’t want to deal with me good or bad during this never-ending journey and I have to be ok with that. I have to accept that and come to terms with it. I have to understand things from their point of view and no longer feel angry. Doesn’t mean that when I see something I’d talk to them about, or I have a dream of when things were good that I’m not going to get upset again – I will, and I’ll deal. Alone.
This rant is in respect to the year anniversary of losing Robin Williams, nobody could’ve imagined that this guy suffered as bad as he did, he suffered in silence, he smiled through his pain, but didn’t have the support he needed and he lost his fight. I don’t want to lose this fight – I’ll keep hope and always keep fighting!!
Don’t be afraid to talk about it, even if most people can’t understand how you feel. I don’t understand how you feel as you don’t understand how I feel, but I sympathize with you because I suffer too. I get it. And not everyone does, but it doesn’t mean that you’re not suffering. Find those who get it and talk to them – finding empathy helps you fight, knowing that you are not alone – and believe me you are not – helps you fight, getting professional help – helps you fight, knowing that this is a REAL illness and not just you being selfish, lazy, full of excuses, etc. – helps you fight. ALWAYS KEEP FIGHTING! I’m going to be fighting with you – every motherf*cking day!
Allison In Onederland? 