So I haven't posted in awhile because I found myself completely lacking in things to talk about. Every time I would try, nothing would come to me. But today I realized something great to talk about.
Depression. I'm not talking about what almost everyone calls depression, where you're sad and upset. That's not really depression usually, it's just sadness. I'm talking about true depression. Where your body doesn't want to move and there is no motivation to even continue breathing. Where you aren't just sad, you have been sucked into a void where only negativity and hopelessness exist. And it doesn't matter how much you tell yourself that its just the depression causing problems and you try to brush the bad feelings away, they just continue coming at you full force, trying to drown you in the terrible thoughts and feelings. And you can't escape.
That's true depression. Now a days when people become very sad, even sorrowful, they just call it depression. Every angsty teenager out there has said they were just feeling depressed or whatever. But that's not depression. Depression is not feeling down. Depression is like a void, where positive feelings no longer exist and it is completely devoid of hope. Its irritating that people do that, just write sadness or feeling down off as depression. Because then when people like me come along and express that I'm struggling with my depression today, I'm being an angsty teenager or a drama queen or I'm just pathetic. But it's not some stupid emotional thing for me. Its a chemical issue and it runs in my family. I try and try to just get out of it, to cheer myself up. But it really doesn't work that way and its insulting when people act like it is. Its like telling a psychotic that if they stop thinking they're hallucinating and just tell themselves its not real they will go away. Those people already try very hard to do that so obviously that doesn't really work. When your brain creates something, whether it is a hallucination or a state of mind, there isn't anything you can do about it. You can think that its just your sickness all you want and try to make it go away by thinking its not real, but that doesn't do a damn thing.
When you experience true depression, you experience it in two separate ways; physically and emotionally. Physically, you feel completely exhausted and downright tired. All you want to do is sleep and sleep and sleep. Your whole body feels stuffed up, sort of swollen and numb feeling and everything feels dull. Yet you feel restless. You want to do something, but its like your body is too exhausted and any motivation you try to feel just gets sucked away. Getting up to do anything is a struggle and you have to fight with your own body to make it get up. Your body completely lacks a desire to fill its needs, such as food and drink, and when you think of food there is only the mental acknowledgement that your body needs food but your body just doesn't even want it and it feels like you honestly couldn't eat it anyway. So you lay in bed all day. Sometimes you sleep the entire day. Sometimes you just lay there.
Emotionally, you enter a void. A void where positive does not exist and only negative exists. You feel so completely and utterly hopeless. Your mind swirls with bad thoughts and feelings. And you try to just brush them off, to say its just the depression. And on a normal day when the depression isn't so bad, that would work. Normally you can simply push the negative aside and mentally reach out for positives. But on the bad days, when you reach out, its like there is nothing there. You think of things that make you happy, but instead your brain takes them and replaces them only with negative feelings. You can't push them back no matter how hard you try. It feels like the negativity is literally crushing you, like you are drowning in the absolute hopelessness and complete lack of anything good. Mixed with the physical side effects, you just give up. Usually you sleep because being awake is so miserable. There isn't truly a word that I feel is strong enough to communicate the feeling. There is just no hope, no point, no anything. Your existence becomes a vacuum, it becomes empty and nothing can give you a purpose. So you just sleep because what else can you really do?
No matter how much I fight and try to make it better, I can't. Its like I'm trapped under my own depression like a giant boulder has landed on me and no matter how hard I push, it won't budge. I spend my whole day trying to make it better. Instead of sleeping I try to read, go on the internet. I'll try to force food into my stomach and try to make myself get up and do things. And getting up really is a huge struggle. Because my motivation just disappears and I try to create more and it just dissolves. There really is just nothing, no need, no desire, no hope, no motivation. No anything. But my logic knows that its depression and knows that there are things I need to do. But doing those things is such a mental struggle. Eventually I am too mentally exhausted from trying to fight it and I give in to the tiredness and just go to sleep.
There are things that can sort of drag me up out of it. Not entirely but enough that my physical needs come back and I don't feel like I'm drowning. Generally it is a guy. Not just any boyfriend though. The ones who I really fell hard for, the ones I really loved. First, being around them makes my body release good hormones. Even in the chemical fuck that is depression, some of these other chemicals still work. One of them I know is oxytocin because physical contact in particular helps. Having them right there also takes a lot of the power away from the bad thoughts about them. Also, those guys I really loved have always made me laugh. I can't even help it. Since my logic still works, the things they say or do still register as funny, and it causes my body to respond in the form of laughter. And laughter releases a lot of good chemicals. For some reason, other guys just weren't very good at it, just the ones who really got me.
Today was one of the really bad days. Which is why I wanted to talk about it. The only relief I had was a phone call at about 5 from a certain guy who I am very much in love with and he made me laugh. So for about 15 minutes after he called the good effects were still sorta there. It helped me get up and do something. Helped stave off the utter hopelessness for just a little while. And I'm very thankful for it. But even now I'm having trouble. I'm starting to feel it leak away slowly, but its still very much there. Obviously I found the motivation to type this out, so that's good. I'm hoping that tomorrow it will be completely gone, or as gone as it ever it. It never really goes away. I'm always prone to negative thoughts and being hurt easily. Or even sometimes the physical effects sorta kick in and I'm exhausted a lot and don't do anything. I'm very glad that I'm a very mentally strong person. Or else I would lose myself to it. A lot of people look at me and think I'm weak and emotional. But they don't even know what its like for me, or how much effort its takes to smile sometimes. They don't understand how much I fight. Because everyday is a fight. Even the ones that aren't horrible, I still have to fight the negativity and remind myself that things are good and that there is plenty to be happy about. They don't understand what its like to have to fight a big heavy wave of terrible feelings every single day. They don't understand the complete lack of hope and light. There are a lot of people who kill themselves over it. A lot of people who just lay in bed and sleep for days or weeks at a time. People who drown themselves in drugs. But me? I keep fighting, even on the horrible horrible days when most would simply give up. So on the outside, I might seem weak. But I have come to realize that I'm strong. Even when others can't see it.
Its stupid that I have a mental disease and yet I am treated as some angsty teen and looked down on for it. And its frustrating. Its like I have a giant brick wall in my path and what I have to get through it changes from day to day based on how severe it is. Some days I have a hammer, some days I have explosives, and some days all I have are my hands. And its not some flimsy brick wall, its solid and several layers thick and stretches infinitely from side to side and up and down. The only way over it is through it. And even on the days when all I have is my hands and feet, I'm still kicking and punching and pushing into it. This is my struggle and I am looked down on for it. I would just like to see some of the people who are looking down on me try to make it through one of my bad days. Then they can judge me.
Well that's all I have to say for today.
