ab initio, ad infinitum

depression.

HEY Y'ALL. okay, so by judging by the title of this piece, i think that's it's pretty obvious what this one is about, and it's a personal topic for me, as well as for many other people out in the world. so i just wanted to add a few things in this a/n, because i felt that it was important. first of all, if  reading about depression is triggering to you in any way! - please take care of yourself and proceed with caution (if you read this chapter at all! it's 100% okay if you don't). next, this is something that has affected me for a number of years, even though i really haven't spoken about until recently, and this piece in particular was written a year or two ago, just when i was coming completely to terms with what depression felt like or meant to me (which, btw, doesn't mean that it's what it feels like for everyone else who suffers from depression). so while everything in this piece doesn't necessarily reflect what i might presently think, i felt like it was a key work in the terms of expressing myself, which is what ad initio, ad infinitum is about. so yeah. long a/n, and i will see you soon! do good, be well. garggie <3

D E P R E S S I O N .

Trying to explain to people what my depression is, is one of the hardest things I ever have to do. Many people who suffer from depression don't feel comfortable or don't like asking for help; I don't feel that way. The reason why the world doesn't know what I suffer from isn't just because I hate the occasional pitying glance sent in my direction. Or maybe not, maybe I've deluded myself into thinking that it's not that. But what I know is one of the ways that it's so impossible to talk about depression, is that people don't seem to understand what exactly it is anyway, so I feel like it's wasting my breath, and heavens know that I need those to help me get through the day.

For me, depression is what reduces me to the basic human survival instincts of get through the day. It's living in small victories and ignoring the lingering taste of war to come. I know what I have to face, it's just that I want to live my life the best I can before the storm hits. Before my house is unrooted from the ground and everything I loved is swept away, I want to try to laugh one more time.

Depression is the blanket that covers everything else other than a second from now, a minute from now, a day from now. It's this weekend where I'll meet the people I consider to be my second family, and where joking and making people laugh feels less like a failed chore and more like a talent. Where I can be myself, and where people can love me for all my cracks and damages; where the little girls and boys are inspired even in the slightest by me, where I can help them figure out that they are worth so much. It's where living feels less like a burden of day-in-day-out and more like thankgodiwouldnotwanttobeanywhereelse.

Depression is falling and snapping and watching as people around me either can't see the fragments of myself on the ground, or the people that do, tiptoe around me in the fear that I'll break. What they don't realize is that I have. I'm not gone; I still am hanging on, even if only by a thread. But being spread so thin, waiting to snap over an endless chasm, it only amplifies the fact that you're so pathetically degraded that even your loved ones can't touch you.

Depression is knowing that all those voices inside of me, all those loathing and hating words echoing and harrowing deeper into my brain, aren't real in any way, but also knowing that there's nothing in me that can stop the fact that even if they aren't real, they fucking feel real.

Depression is isolation in the worst kind; the one where you are the reason why you push yourself off-shore. It's being fully aware that your raft is drifting away and knowing a contingency plan for each letter of the alphabet, but being peacefully paralyzed as you drift away&away&away. It's being on the outside of a snow globe, transfixed on the shoeprints of where you used to stand, watching as people you know live their life without you, thinking I used to be a part of that. But there's nothing left of you, not even a shadow. But the others don't realize that you're gone, separated from humanity by a glass wall.

Depression is having 50 pages of statistics in your hand, reminding you that so many fucking people feel like this, and feeling like an asshole, because maybe a part of you wanted to be alone? A part of me thought, hey!- maybe in some morbid, twisted fashion, you could be something worthy enough for a story that could end up in one of those books you always read and wrote. Maybe you have something in you that sets you apart from the rest, but no. I am just an average human who can't even fucking function properly.

Depression is longing for a will again, the feeling of needing to do something. To pick up that pen that you once used every second you could afford to and then some, now run out of ink. Itching to get out and breathe fresh air and run and use your muscles, weary from not being used. Reading, finding worlds where I would rather be. Eating, sleeping, talking, being myself. Anything. Just to feel the need to do something and not feel like tomorrow is a distant concept because tomorrow is after tonight, and god knows how that goes.

Depression is feeling worthless. Feeling like every compliment thrown at you is just a word at your expense; not true, just said, and it makes me so mistrustful of everything. People think I'm being fucking humble, but no. I honestly cannot believe you when you say I'm smart or beautiful or a queen or anything remotely better than a fucking train wreck, because something inside of me doesn't work the way it should. It's feeling like I don't have a legitimate reason to be unlike so many other people, because fuck, my life is great, objectively speaking. Maybe I'm just an ungrateful bitch (I know I'm not I swear, I swear, I swear, but read paragraph five once more). It's something that makes me feel like maybe it's all in my head and I'm making this up because I want attention like what everyone thinks, but I know I cannot afford to think that way, because the second that I lose faith in myself and the validation of how I feel, is the second I lose not only this small battle, but this entire fucking war as well.

Depression is feeling like those quick seconds of bliss, are seconds I shouldn't get away with. Because I'm just so used to misery, I don't know how to deal with happiness (good thing it never lasts though, right?)

But depression is also fighting for every second, and being more and more grateful for everything I have, and seeing life through a different lens. It reminds me that I am so much more than what my shadows whisper of me because what do they know? They only hide behind my back the entire day. It's finding little moments to smile at, things to laugh at. It's finding the group of people that I can always rely on, because they haven't run away from the beautiful mess of me yet, so maybe they are worth more than a dismissive wave when they ask if I'm alright. It's making me realize that I have some things easier than others and somethings worse, but it doesn't matter, because pain comes to all but suffering's not something to be measured. Every person's suffering is different, so maybe I'm weak, maybe I'm strong. Either way, I'll still be standing, and depression taught me that.

Depression is locking myself in my room to blast my favourite songs and smile as I try and write, because maybe the people in my house and life and world don't realize what I'm going through, but I am my first advocate. So if I need to get away, I can get away. If I want to survive, I will survive.

And no one can fucking stop me.

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