I woke up at 11:30 in the morning and fell back asleep until 2:00 PM. The night before I laid in bed watching something on Netflix, I can’t remember now. The past week is a haze. I’ve barely had any energy to get out of bed, let alone do anything productive. Today I managed to make myself some breakfast and that’s the biggest victory I’ve had in the last three days. I have to go to work soon and I’m dreading it. It means having to get a shower, it means having to be around people and interact with them for longer than a few seconds. I already know that as soon as I get home I won’t make dinner, I won’t do anything but lay on my couch for a few hours until I’m tired enough to fall asleep. And this is how I’ve been for months. This is what it’s like to live with depression.
It isn’t just about sadness - although that is a very big part of it. It’s about how everything suddenly isn’t interesting or fun. I don’t want to have a conversation with you, I don’t want to go out for drinks. I want to lay here and do what I’m good at doing: sleeping. My instruments collect dust, my console only turns on to play Netflix, I stop drawing, I stop writing. I just stop caring. And it makes the sadness even worse. Everyone who doesn’t understand depression will say, “Hey, just do something you love. Read a book, get outside and get some sun!” And sometimes I want to shout “Listen here, pal! I’ve tried all of those things and I ended up just feeling worse about myself.” You don’t think that I haven’t tried picking up my guitar and playing some songs I love? Or that I’ve tried using one of those coloring books only to give up five minutes later? It’s just hopeless.
Everything is hopeless. I don’t find much hope in anything. Even the thought of having to go through another day of being this way is agonizing. Not just because it’s awful feeling like I just want to sleep forever, but because I feel bad for my friends. I stopped replying hours ago because I just don’t want to talk to you. It isn’t because I don’t want to, it’s just that I don’t have the energy to reply to anything. I just spent the last hour staring at my ceiling thinking how great my life is and yet here I am enveloped by some sick sadness. That’s all I have energy for most of the time.
And really, that’s what depression is. It’s a sickness. It’s the worst case of the flu you’ve had. It puts you in bed and makes you feel terrible. I know a lot of people who would probably argue that depression is just being sad, but it isn’t. It has physical symptoms as well as mental ones. It’s an all-encompassing sickness. A flu will pass in 3-5 days. So far I’m up to three months of feeling like there’s a dark spot in my chest that’s gnawing away at my insides. And everyday is still the biggest struggle of my life. Don’t tell me about who has it worse. Right now this is my worse. Trust me, I know how good I have it, don’t make me feel worse by reminding me I have no reason to feel like this. I definitely don’t try to remind you that you wouldn’t have a cold if you washed your hands more while you’re bed-ridden and full of snot.
It gets better though. Some days I wake up and almost forget about it. I spent a whole week this month galavanting around my home state and feeling nothing but happiness. Albeit that familiar sad feeling was lurking in my mind, especially at night when everyone had dozed off and I was left with my thoughts. But that’s okay with me. Because the only thing I can do is hope that one day I’ll wake up and it’ll be gone forever. The sickness will leave and I will be happy.
Until that day comes though, I should probably get out of bed and try my hardest to look like I’m not dying inside. Because the first step to beating depression is to act like it isn’t there. I can’t give it that power over me. It doesn’t mean I’m not so sad that I think about how easy it would be to disappear. It means that if I can at least push myself through days, eventually it might get easier. Who knows, though. Everyone approaches it differently. Everyone I know with depression will say something completely different. In some ways I wish I could gather them all and just talk about everything.
Maybe that’s why I’m writing this. Because keeping this inside me is what really sucks the most. I’m embarrassed to talk to my friends about how I feel. I’m scared people will just blow me off, scoff, tell me the same old generic things I’m used to hearing. Outing yourself as depressed feels like drawing a giant target on you for all sorts of useless crap. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” is literally the worst type of response to give me. Are you sorry? Or do you not know how to reply? I guess I’m a little bitter over all of this.
But this is what it’s like living with depression. At least on my end. But the important thing is I’ve managed to make it this far without doing anything entirely drastic. And whether anyone knows or not, it’s what I am most proud of nowadays.
It’s 3PM and I managed to write this instead of laying in bed all day. Maybe I’m getting better.
