This Reddit thread. Not because it's Reddit, or the material's wrong.
It's because the material is right.
I don't want to slap the label of depression on myself for want of pity or attention, knowing full well the folly of self-diagnosis. Yet... Facing it, actually taking a peek at from between fingers clasped over one's eyes, seeing what others have seen in it...
Then there's the little physical things. The records I've collected in anticipation of a record player, the stacks of old books I've shelled out small money each for courtesy of library clearance, the racks of CDs of old computer games, the enormous Steam library, physical months of my life spent being fed images from a computer screen. Everything, all of it, in a race to flee the depression, to pretend life is okay on that little high of buying a new thing. I don't need things. I don't want more things, yet I'll buy them anyways. I know I will. And I don't want to.
I don't want this. I don't want everything to not be okay in my head, but I'm sick and tired of throwing a blanket over the problem and saying, "see, there's nothing wrong, you're being ridiculous," and undermining my own confidence as a result. I've started noticing the strange looks and wry comments when my humor twists too darkly, my mouth run a bit too loosely, and the blanket shifts away from a corner.
I'm sick of fighting myself, too. I feel like crying now. I won't cry. I'd like to, but I'm much too cognizant of the world around me, the expectations it holds for me, and the repercussions of my actions. There is no joy, no relief in self-harm, no peace in annihilation, no point in attempting either. I know better than these things, and that's difficult. They are not outs that I get to take, no predictable answer, and that aches. Knowing aches. I ache.
I've faced the above for so long that I have no point of reference against it. Years of assuming this is how it should be, or telling myself again and again, that it'll get better, believing it every time because there's no other option, no sane choice in the matter.
Yet.
Yet I'm not happy. I'm not at peace, not at ease. I know I'm capable of many things. I've been told I'm brilliant by countless people. I like me, but I am an obstacle, and as things are proceeding now, none of the above will get better.
When does it get better?
Depressed means, literally, a depressed experience. Emotions are muted, or nonexistent. Interpersonal relationships feel like a waste. Summoning up the effort to accomplish anything becomes more and more difficult. However, never once during that time would I say I was unhappy. I was merely numb, existing because anything else was too much work.
Read this part and just sighed. I've been diagnosed by a doctor with clinical depression, more than once, more than one doctor, but it still... Just doesn't ever sink in. I KNOW that depression is a chemical imbalance in my brain, but I can't... Fix it. The thing is though, nowadays I'm pretty much immune to emotional damage. I'm burnt out. Right now, at this exact moment, I do not think there is a single person on earth that could make me cry. Not even me. Maybe if they punched me in the nose, but that's about it. I can't feel... Anything. I get angry sometimes, in traffic, but even that is more of a halfhearted response than anything else. I've recently tried to get back to dating, but I've just got so much negativity about it, I... Know it's not going to work. Because I'm going to sabotage it. Because I don't want it to work. Because I'm afraid of feeling again. If I let them close, they can
hurt me. I'm tired of hurting. I'd rather be dead inside than hurt again.
I don't know how to help you. I just want you to know that I know how you feel.
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Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9699733 times)