What My Depression Feels Like

I wish I knew how to explain depression, my depression. Whenever I think of putting it into words all these cliches run to the front of my mind. I have a feeling I won't say it right the first time around, maybe after a few tries I will have gone a bit deeper. 

Oh, off topic, but, after looking at some past journals stowed away in my old room I have realized that when I used to write as a teenager I was more honest, even cruel with myself. I was a straight shooter. And maybe that is because I was so depressed, I don't know. Lastly, it seems, according to my journals, that I've always wanted to be a writer and tell stories. 

My depression. My depression is like a veil, a scrim, going over my eyes, blocking out sunlight, distorting how I see the world. The color drains from everything around me and all I see is a dull and hopeless surrounding dying before me. Nothing has happiness, everything is there because it is, it has no purpose. I go through the day interacting with so many people and things, and yet they all feel grey, colorless, empty, foreign things that don't speak my language. I am alone and the world is lonely. Everything tainted with a dark shadow. 

The cruelest part is that when I'm there in those moments of despair, when everything around me is part of a daily strum with no direction, it is in these moments that I am blinded by my own illness. I can't even realize and or understand what my mind is doing. To me it's not a trick, it's my reality. In that state of mind I am not cognitive enough to see that it's my depression making everything gray and bleak, and rather the world is truly not that way. I can't even tell I'm depressed. To me, it's normal. It feels as if I am on a track, spurring along with no decided direction, rather something is pulling me and propelling my body to whatever is next in the game called, "life," but I do it mindlessly, but not with ease, without motivation or hope. I do it because I know nothing else than this repetitious behavior. 

I just wish I could emphasize more how my mind does not work properly, or how it plays tricks on me, or how everything feels like a silent movie with me on a conveyor belt going through the motions because that's all I've ever known. Being depressed and in that moment not knowing that it is your mind telling you to put the lighted fire closer to your skin is the most frightening and bewildering thing I think I have experienced. It's like being mind raped while you are immobile and petrified. 

During that second when I think about burning myself never do I have the second thought of, "this is my depression talking." It's taken over my sanity. "I should not burn myself not just because it is wrong, but rather because I am in an altered state of mind that does not match what I feel in my soul." I don't trust my mind. In fact I don't even know if I can call it my friend. It frightens me and tricks me as if I'm a fool. No, it's my depression. I am smart, not only with my mind, but with my heart. You might be able to pull the wool over my eyes, and whisper my fatal and upcoming tragedies in my ear, but you cannot take the essence of me, the thing that survives the rubble every time you push me off that god damn cliff. 

I hate you. I hate that you make me think I am nothing. I hate that you make death seem like a peaceful slumber awaiting me in the distance. Just past those trees you will find your happiness. The trees are crowding the good. There's good in there amongst the dark and the only way to find it is through. It's hard, and I hope your mind never wins that battle where it takes you and leaves just a memory of who you wanted to be. Keep going. 

The light pervades. 

Heroine

Sometimes I think it would be fun to still be the villain, and also the victim of my own clandestine self destruction. How can someone play both parts at once? I don't know how I did it for so long. I would viciously tear myself down and build myself back up with a foundation as shaky as my confidence and much smaller than my self loathing habits. I never understood the self depreciating Isabella Swan or Anastasia Steele (who are basically the same character). Always thinking they are less than what they're supposed to be or could be. I hated seeing a woman yank herself out of the game because of some convoluted notion of not being good enough. I despised it because I was the same way. All I had done and everything I believed I was brought me pain and a faulty perception of what I one day could or could not be. I'd say,"why would you let him do that" or, "you're so fucking dumb, you can't even keep up" or, "I am weird. I am wrong." Some variation of self hatred.


I let my villainous self massacre me. I was the victim to my own crime. How twisted and bizarre of a time it was when death seemed like an answer because reality was my hell.


Now, here I am 6 years later and a heroine to my own story, my own life. As a heroine and warrior I know the battle is never over, things will come and go, heartbreak and tragedy will ensue, but also that the light I keep in my heart will somehow prevail. Instead of hiding and shrieking for a bottle of beer to solve life's calamities I am now tensing up and waiting for the hit, packed with armor and a sword all welded with my bare hands. Life may annihilate all I have but I'm still the heroine, holding myself up, looking towards tomorrow instead of the past. Life is a bitch, but it is far more pleasant when you are the heroine of your own story, instead of prey to your own folly. Don't believe what they tell you about not reaching these invisible standards. You are your own worst enemy and your best supporter. Do yourself a favor and give up on being helpless. Simply be your own heroine.