What Does She Have to be Depressed About?

CW: Contains topics of suicide, depression and abuse.

We see it happening all the time, especially on social media like Twitter or Facebook.

“What does she have to be depressed about? She’s got more money than God. Look at her boyfriend. He’s always sexy. What the hell right does she have to be sad?”

There is a weird disconnect or a sort of cognitive dissonance involved in the mind of people who don’t normally experience depression or extended sadness. On the surface, things might seem absolutely fine. But beneath the skin lurk the things of the dark, and some people get lost within those shadows..

Sometimes, they never return.

There are dark things below the surface.

If you were to take a look at me on the surface, you might see some of the “social cues” that give every reason for me to be a happy person.

I have a wife who adores me, amazing kids who would never do a thing to hurt a fly let alone another human being and, even if I am disabled due to blindness, I get to “sit at home all the time and write.” By all accounts, I have every reason to never show signs of depression or trouble.

Right?

If people on social media were to be believed, that’s the way it is. However, digging a little deeper reveals subjects hard to discuss.

I remember a nurse berating me the first time I tried to end my life. She droned on and on about how I had so much to live for. I had a mom and a dad who loved me. Friends were even then beginning to show up to make sure I was okay. Why would I ever try something like that?

I couldn’t tell her I’d endured years of emotional, physical and verbal abuse at the hands of that father the nurse thought loved me. I couldn’t express then, as I can now, how my mother was a raging narcissist who actively worked to destroy my life for her own sake.

As for the friends? Gawkers, more than anything. I didn’t have anyone at that time I would consider a “friend,” and wouldn’t for another few years after.

The ones who showed up were there more for the show than anything. Well, that, and to make sure the guy who could keep supplying them with the orgies would still be around next weekend.

Yeah. I was that guy, too.

I got good grades. I didn’t get into trouble. I wasn’t one of the “bad seeds” prone to do damage or kick a puppy down the block.

No. By all appearances, to the outside world, I had everything to live for.

Beneath? Chronic depression because of uncontrolled bipolar disorder, a bushel of PTSD I’d not be able to process for years to come, and a decade of traumatic abuse. Those things and more were in that pack on my back, weighing me down with every single step I took.

I would go on to try another 32 times before I finally broke the cycle and found ways to help myself through it all.

Even then, I ended up in a marriage that ended with my wife stabbing me on my honeymoon, and a kid I’d be prevented from seeing for years. I moved on from that into a 5 year tortuous existence with another wife who thought it was fun to beat the shit out of me all the time.

I learned how to mask those things, too, because I had to.

People don’t need “reasons.”

When I see people talking about how someone seems like they have no reason to be depressed, it aggravates me no end. My unholy goat Bob chomps at his bit, waiting to tear them a new one. Sometimes I let him.

People do not need reasons to be happy. They don’t need reasons to be depressed. They either are, or they aren’t.

Depression is a disease. It’s a silent killer, always actively fighting against every instinct you have to survive. It’s a drain on your resources, and makes you clamor for every iota of dopamine you can get your claws into, just for the sake of possibly making it through yet another day.

And when that next day comes? You have to start it all over again, knowing the fight against that fucking beast is never going to end.

Depression is the worst of the hells, because it gives you no hope. It takes everything away from you. It’ll make you throw away friendships you’ve had for years because you don’t want to deal with having to hide it around them anymore. Hiding it is too tiring. You’ll spend every bit of cash you can on the newest “thing,” hoping, somehow, this time around, you can find a spark of joy in it that’ll last.

It doesn’t, of course. Instead, you are that much more in debt and even further depressed than you were when you saw “the thing” to begin with.

Depression doesn’t have to have a “reason.” It exists. That’s all.

That’s all.