Have you ever sat there on a boring Thursday and wondered where your life was headed? And the more you thought about it, the deeper you sank into a motionless calm that stretched over your head and heart like a shroud? No matter how positive you wanted to be, you simply couldn't manage a single, happy thought. Could you? No...
It's all right. We all do this. I call it "me time" but I suppose the correct term doctors shove down your throat is depression. I have often heard people who have never suffered this emotion try to explain it.
"Those who have it have no hope in themselves."
"I hear it's like drowning and you can't pull yourself out or swim."
"It's pure loneliness."
Well, I assume you all think you're partially, or perhaps completely, correct, but let me explain something. Scrap everything you've ever thought, and just read.
Depression. Such a dark word. No light could ever spring from it's soul. And yet it is so alive. No joyful thought could escape it's clutches. And yet when it strikes me I am happy. It grabs on to whatever light it can find and destroys it- No, actually, destroy isn't strong enough a word. To destroy sounds much too fast, as if it will be over soon and you'll be at rest in the ruins. But no, Depression grasps your heart in it's luke-warm grip and slowly and carefully lets it deteriorate. Every once in a while it rips a tiny piece of your heart off, resulting in a painful heart break, just to change things up from the normal, lifeless pain you feel constantly.
THAT is Depression. and he's my best friend. Never have I met someone who cares so much for me. He takes my hand and comforts me. When I sleep, I often feel as if someone is missing from my heart. But I don't need to worry because he always returns when I awake. He has never left my side.
For someone who has never experienced Depression knocking on their heart's door, this will sound sick, twisted, and quite frankly wrong. And let me tell you, it is. It is so wrong. It is beyond anything I have ever known. But there's a problem.
Taking cocaine is wrong as well, but people enjoy it.
Depression is a drug, and once you've felt it, you want more. You need to get your fix. But you get used to it, so you need it in higher dosages. You're never satisfied. It's hurting you and slowly breaking you down into a shell of a person, but you can't help it. The pain is blissful. It's the only thing you know. Everything else is strange and new and you don't want anything to change.
You cry and want it to stop on the outside, but on the inside, something just feels right. A part of your brain is screaming for release from the torture but you steadfastly refuse to free yourself because you are afraid of the life that awaits you without your friend. Y-you need Depression to help you through your day. You know no other way. You have convinced yourself that there is no way out, that your trapped. But in reality, you have trapped yourself. A small part of you knows that, but is afraid to admit it.
This is why it is so offensive when someone says, "Just be happy!". It's like, "What the actual Hell do you think I am trying to do! Do you think I want to be like this?" But inside us, we know if we tried, we could break through. We've just thoroughly convinced ourselves that there is no way out, and that this is our life now. We become the martyr of our own story. Always the victim, and yet we make ourselves out to be brave souls, struggling through life the best we can do.
This is the mindset of the Depressed, even if they have not accepted it.
But let me tell you something, and I am talking directly at the people struggling right now: Being depressed makes you no more a Hero than if you were the Damsel in Distress of the story. In fact, it doens't even make you the Victim of the story. It makes you the town drunk who refuses to help the Hero because he is afraid. And don't you stop reading if you feel offended. I know where you are, and I know how badly it hurts, but listen. If you spend the rest of your life being afraid and cowering to this monster who has broken into your soul and taken up residence, you will never be great. You will never succeed truly. You will always be over-shadowed by the bully in your heart.
So please join me in at least trying to fight back. I'm done being the Coward. I want to be the Hero of my own story. I want to try.
