I think that it is safe to say that many people have gone through depression at some point in their lives for one reason or another. It is very unfortunate to see how many people suffer in silence. According to the Depression And Bipolar Alliance and the Archives of General Psychiatry, in the United States over 14.8 million adults suffered from major depressive disorder in the course of one year. That's a pretty significant number. Some people would look at a number like that and say that you can choose to just get over it, whatever it is, and move on. Little do they know, kicking depression isn't that easy.
Throughout my life I have had plenty of times where I could recall being sad or disappointed for different reasons. Maybe I didn't get the toy that I wanted. Maybe my mom put me in time out as a form of discipline. Whatever it was, at the snap of my fingers that mood could change and the world was right again. Depression doesn't allow you to just "get over it."
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The biggest hurdle that I had to overcome was the ability to accept that the world isn't fair. Sometimes you fall and scrape your knee. Anyone can just get up and walk away from that. Maybe to you it feels like you broke your leg instead. That takes healing and time. Everyone is different when it comes to their healing process. For me, heartbreak was probably one of the worst feelings in the world. Some people "get over it" quicker than others. I didn't. I fell into a downward spiral of depression. My chest felt like it caved in. I felt like my whole world shattered into a million pieces, and every time I tried to pick them back up I just created even more of a mess. Depression consumes us and completely alters our view of the world. It envelops us like a cocoon. You wake up to a brand new day feeling like you cant even function to get out of bed in the morning. Scents, tastes, memories; they all give each other a hand in strangling you alive. As someone who has struggled with this, I can honestly say it feels like a never-ending, downward spiral of loneliness and pain. If you haven't gone through it, I'd say you're definitely lucky.
When we allow ourselves to stay in a depressed state, we tell ourselves outrageous things. "I wasn't good enough." "No one will ever love me." "No one cares." "I will NEVER love again." I told myself that last one. Opening yourself up and making yourself vulnerable to another person has it's risks. No one is perfect. People hurt each other, even if it was unintentional. That doesn't matter to the person in pain. Hurt is hurt no matter what. While we sit in anguish over everything that happened, how is it that the other person can just move on? Why can't we just "get over it"? The truth is you don't need to just move on like it never happened. Everyone deserves to take time to think and heal in order to learn from the experience and move forward in life. What most people are stuck on is the idea that we have to get over it or hide our feelings for the other people involved. That's where depression gets the best of us. The worst thing that we can do is internalize our pain. It eats us alive especially when you're the only one who knows the demons you're fighting.
Somewhere down the line our society developed a culture that shames people for expressing their feelings of sadness. Being depressed is considered shameful and outside of the social norm, so we hide it from the world. At what point do we say enough is enough? We should never be afraid to escape the grasp that depression and sadness has on our lives. It's important to work through it. When we stop taking care of ourselves it bleeds into every aspect of our lives. Everyone around us is affected. In my worst moments I found myself rejecting love from the people who meant the most to me. The last thing I want to do is make anyone else feel the way that I did. No one deserves to live their life alone in the dark. I missed my old self. Maybe other people have different motivators that give them the courage to rise up from the ashes. For me, my motivation was that I knew that this wasn't the way I was supposed to be living anymore. I knew that I deserved to be happy. There are so many things that I want out of life. I wasn't going to achieve any of that by locking myself in a dark room and internalizing my pain. I had to release it to get better. I'm not saying that all of it just goes away like card in a magic trick. What I am saying is that in order to heal we have to take a step of faith to climb out of the abyss that surrounds us in order to remember the beauty in life. Taking that step is something that you do for yourself. When you find that little shred of hope you hold onto it and do whatever it takes to feel joy again. Some people choose counseling or rely on religious faith to begin to heal. Do whatever it takes to fly again. Life is too short to live in a cocoon. We are all too beautiful to live in the dark.
