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Luka
Mar 4, 20235 min read

I Love You And I Have Depression.

Updated: Mar 8, 2023

Sweet Dolls, depression is like black tar in the air that circulates around your space, fills your lungs and burns your eyes. It never truly leaves... Sometimes the air just gets a little bit clearer or a brighter day dawns. It's not always flagged as depression because it takes other forms and it's not always recognisable because a lot of people keep it bottled up and hidden away. Depression is isolating and cold, like the iciness of a Winter's day and unfortunately, too many beautiful souls are burdened with its lingering shadow. It can be difficult to love life, experiences, opportunities and those around you. But it isn't out of undesire, it's because the feeling of love coexists with the heavy feeling of an arctic, endless, hateful mist.

 

I didn't know as a little girl why when I shared some of the thoughts and feelings I was experiencing with my mother, she would become distant and sad. I understand now, from her life experiences, that her reaction was out of fear for what the future could hold. I always felt different growing up... I often felt as though I had more on my shoulders than those around me, that even great days would be tinged with disappointment, sorrow and dismay and that simply being would often feel exhausting. I had a lot of 'bad' thoughts. I doubted the genuineness of my friends and the love my mother gave me, I overthought things like whether or not I was a good person or if anyone actually liked me and I sought more validation, reassurance and approval than others because my stores were depleted. I recall a time when I shared with a friend that I was suicidal. I was 9. She was too young to know how to support me so she told her mum and then, her mum told mine. My mum was furious because she thought I was just saying things without understanding the seriousness of their nature. I remember how upset I felt because although what I was saying wasn't 'normal', for me that world was my normal and being 'in trouble' for experiencing depression left me feeling lonely and ashamed. As I grew older, these feelings only strengthened. I didn't know why I felt so sad all of the time. I constantly felt that I had to hide who I was because I felt like a big, dark grey fog that followed all of the happy people... I was a burden in the lives of anyone's path that I crossed. As I continued to live with this belief, I began to make myself experience pain. Physical pain became a relief because finally, I thought I was being treated in the way that I deserved. There was this beautiful world before me... Delightful breezes, rays of warm sunshine and clouds of white and there was something truly wrong with me because it wasn't enough for me to be happy, not like it was for everybody else. I would try so hard to fill my days with tasks to feel accomplished and study hard to make those around me proud but every movement felt taxing, every action took immense effort and every word I said involved contemplation. My sensitivity was always noticeable to myself and my loved ones. It truly hurt me when I found unkindness in the world. It still pains me to see just how cruel people can be... Gossip, violence, bullying, war. Whenever unkindness was directed toward me, it amplified my preexisting negative emotions to new heights. It felt unbearable. It was unbearable. I developed Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, punishing myself for anything I created that was less than a perfect standard. I also developed anorexia, starving myself because it made me feel numb, as though I was escaping reality, becoming delirious in a world that was ever-so bleak and mundane. Such a scary, unpleasant world existed but it existed alongside the world my family created for me... One of connectedness, teamwork and love. It's not that I couldn't experience the world they'd created for me, it's that it only existed alongside my world that they didn't know at all. I wish I'd known the world they knew but I could never know it in the way they did. I may never know it in the way they do. I love that world, I love the ones in it and I have depression.


 

Sometimes, things get better for a while. Sometimes, I feel like the sky was made just for me or that the birds sound beautiful singing in the trees or that I have so much love for my family that I don't know where to put it all. Sometimes, I really feel as though this time is different and that I'm starting to feel okay. But the thing about sometimes, Dolls, is that sometimes is never most of the time and sometimes is never all of the time. Just as I get used to falling asleep without the tears in the corners of my eyes and waking up without the pressure in my chest, a new day will come but it's not a new day at all, it's the oldest day that's lived. It's just another day, the way it always was. I always feel so stupid for yet again hoping that things would be different this time and for forgetting how the good period of time has only ever been followed by what never truly left. The life I live isn't governed by the emotions I experience because mostly, the emotions I experience keep me in a sort of trance, where either I feel slightly delirious, impossibly happy or so on the verge of either that I live in fear, just waiting for one scale to tip. I love this life and all of the moments that make it beautiful and I have depression.

 

Just as the water on Earth can be found salty in the ocean, fresh in the rivers, drunk in the palms of our hands, used to grow flowers, frozen into glaciers and warmed into steam, depression often transforms into other conditions, except it's much less exquisite. My depression started to leak. Drip. Drip. Drip. It leaked into the mind of a girl who sought perfection to feel a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment because nothing else could. Obsessively, I became compelled to perform actions to a near-impossible standard until my hands would bleed or my body ached or my wrists burned. Unsurprisingly, the obsession brought with it such a high expectation that it could rarely be achieved. And in the moments I couldn't meet the relenting standard, my depression strengthened, grew and peaked as the sentences 'I am a failure', 'I am a disappointment' and 'I am worthless' became the lenses that I saw the world through. Next, it leaked into anorexia. I had become so very painfully sad that I just wanted not to feel anything at all. Not eating numbed me. It was the only time when an experience (the one of food abstinence) could override the heavyweight that was always pressing and pressing and pressing on my chest. For others, it leaks into anxiety. For others, it leaks into substance abuse. And for others, their depression doesn't leak into anything else but instead, it lingers and lingers and lingers. I love feeling the salty ocean in my hair and I have depression.

 

It shouldn't be possible for a person to be plagued by the demon that is depression. It's evil. It's unforgiving. It's unkind. I wouldn't wish half of what I feel on my worst enemy, Shopaholics. For the beauty that is this world should be an everlasting experience, unclouded by the dismay that is this mental illness. For anybody suffering, there is light in your tunnel right now... Don't wait to find the light at the end because by then, it may be too late.

Kisses,

Cos x

 

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