The problem with depression is it's boring.
It wears you down. Through the monotony. Through a consistent effort to make you feel numb or empty.
Depression is something that constantly tries to take from you. Take your energy, take your mind, take your joy.
It absorbs things and depletes things and it gives nearly nothing in return.
Right now, it's pushing me around.
I lose the inspiration to move my body. I lose the desire to laugh. I lose the sense of what it feels like to connect with other people. Everything has an unpleasant resistance attached to it, suddenly. Life is drained of its colour. There's this over arching feeling that there is nothing new to discover, nothing left out there that really matters, that the ride is all but over.
In the best of times, a new day is a gift. In the worst of them, it's drudgery. I scold myself for the lack of gratitude.
"There is so much suffering in the world..."
"Who am I to complain..."
"There's so much to be appreciative for..."
And there is. Legitimately. It just... isn't currently accessible.
It's invisible, for the time being. Hidden.
When I'm in alternate versions of my mental health, there's a constant sense of hope. Not wishful thinking or self delusion. But, a real direct line into hope. Into a positive expectation for tomorrow. The sense that things beyond our own imagination are possible.
The rather daring belief that we can always be surprised. Hope inspires action. Action inspires growth. Growth keeps us moving forward.
And depression comes along and takes all of it. It hides it. Depression is a parasite, in that sense. It's a taker, not a maker. It is willing to wait you out. It's like seeing an adult take away all of a child's toys and then watching their joy deflate. It's cruel. So, there I am.
Here I am.
Again.
Stuck here, with this unshakeable feeling. It feels repetitive, at this point. I have prided myself on being a resilient individual. I know all the things I want to say about myself. "I'm someone who pushes back no matter what!"
"I'm someone who can find strength within myself at all costs!"
And yet, here I am. Flattened by depression. Knocked over, gasping for air, trying to tell myself it's not as bad as it really is.
The continual delay and resistance to wrap your arms around reality and embrace it. And, perhaps the most shocking part is that even for me, someone who has felt it before, dealt with it before, had myself beat up by it before, it feels brand new every time.
It gets you into such an uncomfortable position, and it presses it's weight down on to you. It's a emotional chokehold.
It never relents. It drains you.
And that's the part of it that is really scary: the fact you feel like you don't know where you're headed. The odd moment of uncertainty, or pain, is something we can work with. But depression has this unique way of expanding those small moments into long moments. You don't know when it's going to end, so it's easy to start to wonder if it ever will.
And yet, of course it does.
And yet, of course we know that.
And yet, it still hurts. It's still difficult.
The only thing big enough, truly, to fight back against depression is time. Is the future. That is the only thing that can outlast it, that can erase it. Time is always on your side.
Depression exists now, but not forever. It's hardly a comfort in the moment. It's all you have to hold onto though. You can, and will, outlast it.
On a small time horizon, depression might win. On a long time horizon, you will win. Always. Because one of depressions most clever tricks is to convince you that those fleeting moments are forever.
But: these days are not forever.
They are finite. Each one you get through is a closer step towards that.
These are the things I tell myself, at least. They don't do a lot, in the moment, truthfully. They feel a bit hollow, sometimes even. In the moment. But it's moment by moment that you find your way back to yourself.
Sometimes, depression doesn't make any sense. It will defy the things that you think you know about yourself. It will defy circumstance and reason. It will defy the external world. It will defy you.
But the one thing it can't defy is time. With time, you find your way back. And those dark days will feel like a distant, faraway, hard to access concept.
And you will feel the things that depression tried to take away from you. And you will remember that there is so much to be hopeful for. So much to be excited about. That depression, ultimately, was a liar.
Yes, depression can take things away. But you know how to build things. That will always be more important.
But it takes time.
I try to push back against the dark days, and sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes it's just hard. Maybe there isn't even a reason for it. Or at least, not a particularly good reason.
But if all depression can do is take, then it's worth remembering that you are the powerful one.
You are the one who has something worth taking.
You are the one who has made something out of your life - internal and external - in the first place. As talented of a parasite as depression might be, it's still just a parasite. It can only take from others who have something worth taking.
So it's worth remembering that you have something. And it can't be taken away forever. Not really. It can just happen for a moment. Sometimes, those moments are longer than we wish. But, everything will be returned.
In time. With time.
It's not a perfect answer. It's not a perfect solution. But it's the truth. With time, it passes.
Right now, for me, inside of my own head, it feels rather impossible to hang in there. To believe in the somewhat elementary notion that "it will be over eventually!" How unhelpful.
On the other side of the journey, it's easy to spew out platitudes and poetic language and motivational pandering. In the journey, it feels like an insult, at best. That's the thing about depression, it robs us of perspective.
We get disoriented. It's part of what makes depression such a force to deal with. It separates you from yourself.
It strips away at your logic, reason, intelligence, and spiritual armour until all you are left with is the lesser parts of yourself. Pessimism, negativity, and fear are fertile soil for depression to grow from. It thrives off of it. That's how depression plays tricks on you. By getting you to doubt the fundamental truths you know. By shrinking life down to the small size of this very exact moment where you feel defeated. That's how it takes more from you.
By taking away your sense of the future, of tomorrow, of what is possible, and getting you to focus in on the tiny, terrible things that are happening right now.
Because depression is a liar. A parasite. A thief. It will do what it needs to do in order to take up more space. It will do whatever it takes to sustain itself. It tries to shrink you down into something smaller than you are.
And you can't let it. But, it's hard. But, it takes courage. But, you might not have the energy. I know, now, that I don't. So I won't try to push back. Not right now.
Instead I will try to wait it out. I will give it some time, because time is on my side.
It's on your side, too.
Give It Some Time
I am on your side too.
I am so sorry to hear that you're feeling flattened right now, Kevin. Thank you for so beautifully articulating what it feels like to be depressed. I really don't have any words of wisdom as I live in the darkness these days. A sunny day just seems like an assault so I keep my curtains closed and force myself to keep breathing and yes, to remember that this too shall pass. And yes, it is exhausting on every level - physical, emotional and spiritual. I struggle so hard to still trust that God is with me. Because in the darkness it feels like he / she has abandoned the ship.
Thank you for your courage in sharing. I want you to know that your TED talk and your book are currently in the hands of a 19 year old young man who is battling depression (a friend of a friend of a friend). It is really helping him to have hope that he will live in the light again. Thank you for all you do for those of us who need to be reminded that life will be good again if we can just wait it out. I pray that your darkness will lift sooner than later. Take care my friend.