It’s been a rough week. I think I could fare better with depression if I know when it’ll hit me. It’s always a surprise: one minute I’m fine and then the universe and the people in it do something that starts the ball rolling. A trigger for it. I think I deeply care for people and if that isn’t returned I spiral downward. Maybe it’s safest to not care? That’s a certain way to death, but a walking death where your body is alive but your soul is dead. The only way to live, and to truly live, is to love. Even if that love hurts you, I don’t see any other way forward in life. What’s the other option? To wall yourself off and live without feeling for the rest of your life?
I think I’ve weathered the worst of it and I’m in that strange post-depressive state that I can mostly explain as “exhausted.” I’m like 5% happy, 25% depressed, and 70% exhausted. It’s the realization that you’ve made it through the worst of it but where you don’t want to let your guard down. The next wave could happen at any moment. The next trigger could bring you down. Constantly on edge and terrified of the future. Yet the minutes keep ticking pulling you toward whatever inevitable and terrible/wonderful fate awaits. I’m not ready though. Not yet. Let me relax and type this post in peace.
I totally broke down at work yesterday. I was able to drag myself throughout the entire shift but really wanted to talk to someone. Usually I try not to bother people (in a self-loathing state where you think no one cares about you it’s hard to be proactive and contact someone) but it was becoming so damn bad I just wanted to open up. I had to open up. I’d lose my fucking mind if I didn’t talk to someone. Luckily I was able to talk to a good and much-loved friend of mine. He’s a supervisor which makes it even more special because of the responsibilities he had to shirk to tend to me and my problems. The guy has a ton of things to do at work, meetings to attend, yet he found time to talk to me in a dire time of need. I’m forever grateful to him.
We sat in his car and talked for an hour and a half. I nearly cried a bunch of times. He said a ton of stuff, and vented to me about his own problems, while I rambled and blabbed not knowing what I should open up about or what I should “play cool” about; everything came out though. I didn’t care. Even topics I was very hesitant, shy, and ashamed to talk about came out. He knows me better than any other person in the world knows me.
I didn’t know if I felt better or worse afterwards. There was a ton that was said and a ton of stuff to think about. I did realize one thing though and that’s the entire point of this post: depression is a giant neon sign pointing you towards things you need to pay attention to. It’s literally your soul crying for help. And you need to listen to it.
Something about “listening to yourself” and “figuring out what you really need as a person,” you know the bullshit people always tell you. I always viewed this as a negative; I only seen things I needed to improve upon. Knowing yourself is above all knowing your flaws and weaknesses and improving upon them. The view of myself from the start is negative. My depression is my problem to deal with, and that it’s the primary thing that needs to be dealt with. It isn’t what is causing you problems that is the issue, the issue is depression itself. “Just feel better! It’ll be okay! Maybe you’re overreacting.” That’s what I tell myself. I see my feelings themselves as the problem and not something that is a part of me. It’s hard to explain.
I think what I’m getting at is I treat depression like the problem itself instead of a symptom of something else. This might be a trivial realization, but I’ve never had it stick in my head like it did yesterday. To me it seems so profound, one of those “ah-ha!” moments that is so damn obvious I wonder how I didn’t realize it in the first place.
If you really want to know yourself, you can search inside all you want, but it seems if you ignore yourself long enough something will eventually happen and cause you to spiral into depression. Depression is the souls way of screaming out in protest to something in your life, some immense problem that is tearing you apart. It’s well past dissatisfaction or anxiety or discomfort or unhappiness; it’s the final fucking straw where your soul has had enough with something so antithetical to itself that you feel disgusted as a person. It’s not the depression itself that needs fixing, it’s whatever problem is making you depressed in the first place.
Part of this seems to play back into the self-esteem dribble I was really into a few months ago. One of them was “owning yourself” and being perfectly honest with yourself. I’ve been ignoring the causes of my depression for the longest time, trying to play things cool, trying to “man up” and just be happy, all while ignoring what my soul has been trying to desperately scream to myself. Tell myself the depression is the problem, not the symptom of some soul sickness. Just deal with the depression and not fix it. Maybe that’s why I’m so depressed? I haven’t been acknowledging the stuff deep within my soul, only ignoring it, hiding it behind the facade as best as I can. Limp on day to day, week after week, and just be cool. Don’t be weird. Don’t feel too much. Don’t get attached despite having a heart that loves to get attached to people and craves attention. I’m just fooling myself and lessing my value. I am the way I am, and there isn’t anything to be gained by ignoring it. As my friend said, “You are the only ‘you’ in the world. The only Jeremy that is as perfect as you are.” While I still mostly hate the Jeremy that I am, I’m going to have to learn to love him and give him what he needs, because he is a total dick otherwise.
Note: In desperation I finally called and made a therapist appointment for myself. Yay me. It can’t hurt anything, right?
Everything Sucks 
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