Depression

So what does it feel like? Depression? Well, I'll tell you one thing, it's not just "feeling sad." It's way more complex than just having a bad day of work. It can go on for days, weeks, months, and in some cases years if it's chronic. Most people don't understand what depression really is, nor do they have any idea what it feels like. When you go to a party, you drink, listen to music and hangout with some friends, but when you're depressed, a party feels like a funeral.

When you look at people enjoying themselves and getting lost in the noise you think to yourself "Why are they having so much fun?" You would much rather be at home laying in a dark room listening to sad songs or mindlessly scrolling on the internet until you fall asleep. There is an internal struggle of being able to relax, there seems to be monsters under the bed and you can never seem to catch a break. The entire world feels like it's against you and all you want to do is hide from it.

Somehow it always seems to find you though. Escapism is sleeping in every day and staying up late every night. The quiet is soothing and the world is sleeping. At this time you're more free to do the things you enjoy for a little while before the world is awake and it's time to put your mask on. Gathering all your energy to make your daily appearance which feels like the hardest thing to do but you must because people expect to see you again.

No one ever really talks about how often you think about disappearing. It may seem miniscule to you because it's an every day occurrence, but tell someone that is generally happy and they will show an immense amount of concern. When this happens it feels impossible to find someone that understands exactly what you are going through and feeling and it only makes things worse because you feel much more lonely than you did before.

Some days you wake up feeling on top of the world, that's called mania. Other days you open your eyes, feel this weight on your shoulders and immediately want to close your eyes and go back to sleep. Some days you just don't want to exist and that thought can really nag at the back of your mind until you find something to do. The feeling of having no purpose will have you sitting in an empty room spaced out trying to conjure up motivation to get up and do something.

Sometimes your brain will not allow any thoughts to come through and you are left with an echo in the skull. This is when you try to escape with drugs, alcohol, or disappearing. The real problem rises when none of those vices works and you have no other choice but to sit in that feeling. Talking to someone is not an option because they usually brush you off and tell you something along the lines of "Get over it." Then you're once again alone still feeling the same way except now you feel worse when your feelings were left invalidated.

After many times going to others just to talk, I realized they only made me feel unheard. I'm not ever looking for advice, just comfort. No one ever listened and that's when I get pushed to the point of hurting myself just so they can understand how much I really am hurting. Now I don't do it simply for attention, I do it so I know that what I am experiencing is real. The only way to validate my feelings on my own was to truly feel the pain I couldn't see.

I was alone when I was blacked out drunk in the middle of the night. No one came to check on me. I overdosed alone and called 911 for myself. Many times I just wanted someone to care for me but no matter how hard I cried, how much I drank, how many times I got injured it was always just me there that had to pick myself back up. I pulled myself out of that dark place and devoted to never let myself fall back in.

Now that I've made it this far on my own, I know I never needed them in the first place. I learned that everyone I tried to involve only made it more difficult. It wasn't until I started handling things fully on my own that life started to get a little bit better. I'm still depressed, I have clinical depression so it will never go away, but I've made peace with my shadow and must learn to work alongside it. It's a lot like the cliché "There's a cloud over my head."