My own experience with depression
Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2016 5:56 pm
I wrote the following for a friend of mine in an attempt to tell him how I feel. I'm yet to pluck up the courage to send it...
There's two voices in my head, one is selfishness, and one is cold reason. A lot of the time, I can find a median between them. But then sometimes they argue and the only outcome will be depression. If reason wins, I cry because I want more, and selfishness convinces me I need more. If selfishness wins, I cry because I want what's right for those I love, I don't want to be ignorant.
Sometimes they fight for hours, and I have no choice but to listen to each argument, getting deeper and deeper into my own world until I can barely tell the difference between the two voices anymore. I can sit in that bubble for days or weeks, or sometimes it's just a couple of hours.
In that time, I might push others away because I can't know which part of me will surface. I don't trust myself to be fair on them, not to take advantage of them, or not to insult them with a cold rationality. But I normally end up hurting people anyway, even just with my lack of response.
The main thing I find people don't understand is how easy it is to slip away. They might find a way to help me, make me laugh for a few minutes, but there'll always be that bubble there at the back of my mind, waiting to engulf me again. It can take a matter of seconds, just one small doubt niggling at me, and I'm gone again. "but you were fine a few minutes ago" "you're just putting it on now".
And I'm sorry, I really am. Because for you it seems you put all that effort in for nothing. But every little display of caring or affection really does help, even if it's only in the long run.
So just one last thing then. Please don't give up on me. I might be lost or confused, but I'm in there somewhere, I can still hear you.
There's two voices in my head, one is selfishness, and one is cold reason. A lot of the time, I can find a median between them. But then sometimes they argue and the only outcome will be depression. If reason wins, I cry because I want more, and selfishness convinces me I need more. If selfishness wins, I cry because I want what's right for those I love, I don't want to be ignorant.
Sometimes they fight for hours, and I have no choice but to listen to each argument, getting deeper and deeper into my own world until I can barely tell the difference between the two voices anymore. I can sit in that bubble for days or weeks, or sometimes it's just a couple of hours.
In that time, I might push others away because I can't know which part of me will surface. I don't trust myself to be fair on them, not to take advantage of them, or not to insult them with a cold rationality. But I normally end up hurting people anyway, even just with my lack of response.
The main thing I find people don't understand is how easy it is to slip away. They might find a way to help me, make me laugh for a few minutes, but there'll always be that bubble there at the back of my mind, waiting to engulf me again. It can take a matter of seconds, just one small doubt niggling at me, and I'm gone again. "but you were fine a few minutes ago" "you're just putting it on now".
And I'm sorry, I really am. Because for you it seems you put all that effort in for nothing. But every little display of caring or affection really does help, even if it's only in the long run.
So just one last thing then. Please don't give up on me. I might be lost or confused, but I'm in there somewhere, I can still hear you.