Please, Understand
What is depression? I think my smiling face and happy snapchats may have fooled you. I have depression. It's not gone. I'm not cured. This disease is forever. But you seem so happy, you say. Well, sometimes I am! Sometimes, though, I can't get out of bed. I can't keep my eyes open. Sometimes everything hurts. Sometimes I don't change out of my pajamas. Sometimes I'd like to just…not be.
Something remarkable about mankind is our will to survive. Depression takes that away, in fact in its fiercest moments, kindles the will to die. While physical illness somehow carries more validity than mental illness, I can't think of another disease that snuffs out your desire to exist. Depression isn't being sad. It's being stuck. It's being numb. It's losing your job. It's going all day without realized you haven't eaten yet.
Depression isn't being sad. Depression is having 234 unread emails (I just checked). It's hurting yourself just to feel something. It's taking a pill every day. It's forgetting to take a pill every day. It's sitting in group therapy praying you aren't as miserable as the rest of these people. It's being young but feeling old. Depression builds the bars of my jail cell. It takes away my independence. Depression is canceling plans. Depression is loneliness. Depression is emptiness. Its sifting through psychologists you hate. It's giving up. It's working hard and going no place.
Depression is climbing up the down escalator. It's watching everyone else's food come first. It's feeling far behind or too ahead. Depression is darkness. It's a drought. It's a flood. It's trying to explain for the millionth time how you feel. It's the look on my dad's face when I bring up mental illness. Depression is not being sad.
It's having dreams that never amount to much of anything. It's wasted potential. It is failed relationships. It's feeling everything or nothing. It's feeling lost but stuck. It's smiling when smiling is the last thing you feel like doing. Depression is lying awake at 3 AM staring at the ceiling.
Please understand. Depression is not something I can snap out of. It's not cured by fresh air and sunshine. It's not a phase. I'm not a pessimist. I'm not negative. I don't want attention. I'm not faking it. Please, please believe this is real. Depression is real. Depression is brutal. Depression is fatal. Don't tell me to "just look on the bright side" or "be positive". Depression isn't being sad.
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