The most hateful part of suffering with depression is that it makes you someone you are not. It is like a person knocking on your the door the day after you spent the night together with all the people you love, celebrating you for being just who you are. You opened the door and find it there standing in front of you. It was wearing the same clothes you wore last night, only that it was stained with coffee-like spilt. Its hair was messy and it smelled. It was hungry. And you can feel that its cold. Your instant reaction was to close the door. To pretend it never knocked in the first place. But you know it's too late. You already looked into its eyes. You already realized that those teary eyes staring back at you, is you.
When you grew up suffering from depression every once or twice in a year, you are aware that you are suffering from it. You know that it is not just sadness. It is not just you having a bad day. Yes, at first you will try to fool yourself. You will go to your most trusted friends and try to be happy with them. You will try to talk yourself out of it. "I have family and friends, what more is there to be depress about?" But you will not try to tell them what's bothering you. How could you? How could you tell someone that you're sad because you don't know. That you want to cry right now because there is something wrong deep inside you and you want to cry but you don't know why. You would want to make them understand something you yourself couldn't. And after some days, you will realize that the sadness you feel wouldn't go away the way like "normal sadness" goes away. It didn't work that way. You know it isn't. Depression isn't just you lacking of support system. It is you suddenly not wanting to do anything. You don't want to eat because you're not hungry. Sometimes you are so tired even if you just woke up from twelve hours of sleep. Sometimes you can't fall asleep even if you are awake for two days. You feel so isolated. Your family and friends are reaching up but you couldn't even extend a hand to meet their's. You don't want to explain anymore because you think they haven't been there and they will never know how awful it feels. That's how it is. Depression makes you someone they don't know. It is not loneliness you feel but isolation. As if you are the only person in the world that experiences it. It makes you selfish. It robs you of yourself from yourself. You stop from taking care of yourself. It makes you think that there is nothing worthwhile to do. All the parties, the small talk, the smiles... they don't mean anything. Life, suddenly becomes meaningless.
God only knows how much I try to win over this debilitating illness on my own without the help of medications. I am afraid that if I start taking serotonin inhibitors, I will be dependent on it. That even if I go on very small amounts at first, I will eventually be needing an increase as I suffer until I become resistant. So I tried online therapist, suicide hotlines and support groups. I tried reading self help books and religious counselors. But when you are there at the center of a dark circle surrounded by depression itself, none of this would work. Advises that consists of "You should go out more often" "Happiness is a choice" and "We are here for you, all you have to is tell us what you need" all feel like an insult.
I have to stop here. This is not a self help story and I wouldn't come out with something I did to overcome depression so I don't know what else to say. I just want you to know, you who's reading this, of my experience. That maybe you feel the same way and yes, I am not alone. You are not alone. I know and you know (more than our families and friends know) how terribly we suffer from it. But I believe we will heal. Our bodies will heal. The wounds will form a scar. We will be able to overcome this. Depression doesn't have to define us. We should struggle so that it will never have to be us. And maybe one day, when that teary eyed gloomy person that knocked on your door leaves, maybe it will never return again. And we will be free.
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