How Your Silence Grows Depression

Google says:

Major depressive disorder (MDD), commonly known as depression, is a serious mental health condition that affects millions of people worldwide. It goes far beyond occasional sadness or temporary mood changes. Depression is a persistent condition that significantly impacts how you feel, think, and handle daily activities. Understanding the symptoms of depression is the first crucial step toward seeking help and recovery.

I believe happiness and sadness live in every heart, giving us a choice. Annelise Lords

For years, I battled Depression, then Clinical Depression, without understanding. I tortured and blamed myself for everything wrong in my life, trying to figure out why or how I am depressed. What causes me to be depressed?

The first person I take the time to know is me, then life, humanity, and my world.

I grew up hungry and poor because of poverty. Thanks to life, my creator, common sense, knowledge, kindness, love, and wisdom, I made good life decisions that helped reduce poverty in my generation. I think economically, and I’ve managed my finances well by living simply.

Yet I am depressed.

I didn’t have a good life, but I managed to live a good one. I wasn’t born from love, but somehow, love found me.

I managed to give the love and good I want, even when it’s not returned. Wisdom taught me forgiveness and how to use it to cleanse my heart of regrets. Life showed me how to live simply and still maintain good health over fifty.

Yet, I am depressed.

My life is the stuff dreams are made of, being married for almost forty years, too. I have good children who keep adding something positive to our world, as they saw their parents do every day. I have a lot to be grateful for, a lot.

Yet I am depressed.

Life is good to me. Every time hell visits, a heart, a hand, an idea, kind words, or a door opens after lessons learned. Then I become stronger, smarter, and better.

Yet I am depressed.

For years, I remained silent against the cruelty and hatred humanity shares with me. Giving the good I want became an involuntary action for me. I am paid back in dishonesty, cruelty, and hatred 99% of the time. I remained silent, giving back the good I want. All of my life, I have allowed humans and their cruelty to impact my life, and I respond with silence.

Looking back, the pain of their cruelty remains and builds up inside of me for years, which I ignored. One day, like Sleeping Beauty, something deep and painful awakens it. The results of my silence planted Depression into my life. Looking back on so much built-up pain of cruelty and hatred in the name of kindness, because I keep forgiving thoughtless people who never change. People with hard, empty hearts.

Many didn’t stop, and they came back for more kindness and got it. I kept giving from somewhere deep within me, unaware that I was giving away all of myself to humans with a rotten heart.

Humans who don’t know the value of love and kindness. There was nothing left inside of me but pain. There’s nothing good for me to hold on to. I had to fight to save the tiny good left in me.

Being good all of the time doesn’t give balance a chance. Wanting peace all the time denies Balance an opportunity to teach us vital life lessons. Humans like me, and many others who just want a better world, will be depressed because we remain silent in the name of peace when we should have spoken up.

Silence wasn’t the best tool or weapon. Speaking up would be the best tool, but it would become a weapon for a cruel heart. It wouldn’t have mattered, because I would have known who cared about me when I defended myself.

Life showed me that after many years of pain, good and bad serve their purpose, giving humans a choice. Vital life lessons are in both.

Choosing to remain silent is a weapon that gives us the power to self-destruct with the help of depression. This takes happiness away from us, denying us the right to want to live. Annelise Lords

Google says:

Prevalence Among Victims: Researchers estimate that 60% to 87% of people who die by suicide were suffering from a mood disorder, such as major depression or bipolar disorder, at the time of their death.

Yes, I blame myself for my hell, not my silence. I made depression favor me by choosing to remain silent, giving others the power to destroy my life. I know life, I don’t know death. No suicide for me.

I no longer remain silent when cruelty visits. I use common sense and choose my battles with wisdom. I remove myself from the wrong place, while planting love and kindness in the right one. I keep my distance from the wrong people and situations, giving back the good I want in the right ones. Life lessons are in everything, and I keep learning mode on.

Depression will revisit, but I will be ready and prepared when it comes with my tool and weapon of speaking up when I should.

Of course, I know many humans will avoid me now that they can no longer take advantage of me. But the good-hearted ones will stay. I would rather have one kind person in my life than ten cruel ones.

You want a heart that tastes hell, but choose to feast on heaven. Annelise Lords