I feel really tired, emotionally and physically drained. I doubt this is hormonal because it feels so real to me. Unlike the usual hormonal visitations that strip me of my energy, while leaving my emotions unbothered, today (and yesterday) I feel completely drained , fatigued physically, at a point even immobile. I despise my existence but not with much fervor. With the exception of sadness, I don’t think I have the energy to engage with vivid emotions.
Yesterday I considered of how great a companion depression was, I thought of how it consistently checked up on you, despite clear demonstrations from your part that its return was unwelcome in your life. In true fashion of a supporter, or perhaps a deranged psychopathic stalker, it was right there lurking through your windows, prying for the opportunity in which, in your inattentiveness, you cracked it open.
When your friends got tired of your bullshit, depression didn’t; for it loved the chance to remind you how lifeless, and purposeless all of this was. It loved to fill you up with thoughts that solidified the beliefs that life is pointless, happiness is over rated, and ultimate joy is nothing but wishful thinking. Depression wasn’t asking you to be negative, it wasn’t inviting you to feel anger or hatred towards concepts, ideologies or even towards life and the people that seemed to have mastered how to live the game perfectly. No, depression was simply enticing you to deactivate your feelings as a whole; not too high but ultimately not too low. The sacrifice of abdicating true contentment in exchange for desensitized pain — a pain that was so vividly present it was barely there- sincerely sounded like a good offer, an adequate deal would I say (a bargain).
Yet, as enamoring as depression is, and as tenderly as it whispers into your ears, as persuasively as it encourages you to lie there in the cold ground staring into the blank ceiling as your eyes observe the images your mind cannot perceive, depression was still deceptive -and incredibly so.
Depression masqueraded life in a filter. It simplify life to a monotone . Black and white. Peace and havoc. Emotive or emotionless. Good or bad. Alive or dead. With the exception of the latter all these simplifications of life are ambiguous.
Life, as hard, and even as dangerous as it might be is full of contrast and saturation. Contrary to its counterfeit portrayal discussed above, life is vivid with color, it is vivid with emotions, a mixture of joy, excitement, fear, anxiety, passivity, and more. Life is chaotic, but chaos doesn’t always implicate pain, it isn’t always just bad. In the real rendition of life, simplified concepts like good and bad do not suffice to delineate the composition of life’s facets. There are layers to be discovered. There are peels to be unraveled, and perhaps it is this uncertainty of what lies in each layer, along with the certified intensity of each and every emotion, appealing and unappealing, that gives depression the upper hand in the lives it claims.
I know this is something I most probably don’t want to hear at that the moment ( and neither do you) but I need to be honest with myself, I cannot delude myself for the sake of a companion that constantly abuses me, belittles my worth, and allures me to jump off the cliffs it leads me to. Depression is a liar. Being a religious person, (protestant Christian) I am a proponent of the belief that anything that has to lie to you to get your attention is not worth it. If it is lying, it is deceptive, and if it is deceptive, it is depriving you of something that may be worth while. It is important that the decisions one makes are made with all factual and truthful information, otherwise it will not be an honest decision. It will be a coerced one. Much like a violent rapist abuses its victims, allowing the lies of depression to take your life without knowledgeable consent is abuse.
I can affirm that the constant fight to remove this filter — a illness attributed to you without your authorization — is excruciatingly hard, at times seemingly impossible; a fight you most probably wouldn’t want to engage in, yet a necessary one.
I fail to pinpoint exactly when this happened, but at some point I really just didn’t want to die anymore. This did not signify that I no longer struggled with grave suicidal thoughts. I did, constantly and it was disappointing, yet in my disappointment I perceived a novel desire to fight back . I started to have sincere doubts that I was really worthless, and that my life would not amount to anything. The shrieking and mocking voice that always told me “you’ll eventually commit suicide, just do it now” began to lose its credibility. Against all odds I wanted to live. I genuinely wanted to be happy, I wanted to laugh sincerely, dance whole heartedly, argue fervently and in all my actions behave compassionately. I wanted my sacrifice back. I wanted to be truly content.
I don’t know what your story is, but I am sure its dissimilar to mine in exclusion that depression has claimed and still continues to claim too much of our lives. We were made to live. And I won’t tell you to “just be happy”, nor to “just put on a fight”, like its that easy, because I know that’s not how it works. But I will ask you to consider the idea that perhaps “Depression has been repulsively lying to you” and that “perhaps life may be worthwhile.”
You are worth living.
Ella.
