Here’s What You Need To Understand About Living Every Day With Depression

“Could you fix your face? Please.”

“Every time I see you, you’ve got that detestable scowl flaunting on as if the world owes you something.”

“No one is going to want to be around you like that. Your energy is so consuming that your dark cloud is really fucking up my rainbow vision towards the world.”

Sound familiar?

Or sometimes the assumption of “You can’t be depressed! You’re so funny/sociable/happy/etc.” can be worse.

Whether something similar has been said to you, or you said it to someone else, don’t be fooled. Misery is a lonely bitch. Trust me when I say it. Everything confuses, hurts, dissatisfies, provokes, or desensitizes you. It’s not something that ranks highly on e-Bay wish lists, believe it or not.

It’s said that people are miserable because they want to be. Depression and mental disorders are trends, and the idea that your brain (a vital organ) having any power to cause illness on a level that your lungs or kidneys can (other vital organs) is completely ludicrous.

Because that’s what makes sense to someone that’s never been the type of sick you can’t always see.

Since physical illness always outweighs mental illness in conversation, think of your well-being physically.

Let’s say if it’s a car. I really want a G-Wagon, and after I finish the several things on my adult financial to-do list, I plan on buying one. I want it to be black on black, with black leather interior, heated seats, the whole nine. I’m gonna treat that car like my child, buffing and washing around the clock and never having my gas below half a tank. Spotless and perfect. Now if one day in my future fantasy life, I’m heading off to do my rich people errands and I rush to Gina (the G-Wagon’s nickname) who is beautifully parked in my cobble-stoned driveway, and my check engine light comes on, I might ignore it. Then Gina starts making those metal scraping noises later on in the day, only to eventually start smoking from the hood. But it’s toootally fine, trust me. Well it is until the next day when, despite her gleaming shine from the good old boys at Auto Zone (I have no idea if they wax cars at Auto Zone, but they do in my fantasy life), Gina doesn’t start. Like no matter how many times I jimmy the key around the ignition.

How does Gina benefit me (or awe the people future flossy me wants to floss on) without actually getting me anywhere? She doesn’t. She can’t. Because at the end of the day, your car can sit on chromed out rims and come with all the new technology on the market, but it’s not moving with a dead engine.

And neither can we. Because wellness requires psychological health.

You can’t be healthy without a healthy mind.

It’s easy to fall victim to the influence of our brain’s all encompassing persecution. The illness can drain every nerve ending we have without so much as an apology, or explanation of why. Depression is a ruthless, relentless and dictating awning that hovers over, filtering out the light and the sun of logic and security.

We feel like we are a bother to everyone by just being alive.

We know that there may be, even if only one person, that genuinely loves and cares for us, but we feel like we are a bother to everyone by just being alive. We know that a particular trigger is temporary in some form or another, because life is constant change. We know that there are a billion coping methods out there, and that we’re not the only person in the world suffering.

We know.

We know, but that’s not how we feel. We’re not talking about tomorrow; we’re not thinking about next week. Our present, right now and today has the power to split us right down the middle of our medulla and falsify any claim of future sunshine because we unwillingly walked into the eye of hurricane with nothing to protect us but the wire umbrella that is the phrase “this too shall pass”. Numb and passively watching the world crumble around us from our mind’s own doing.

For those that don’t know, it’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to be honest when routinely asked “How are you?” in passing to the water cooler every morning. I 100% do not think it a wise decision to reveal the core of your soul to every passerby or rubbernecker that just wants to be in your business out of sheer curiosity, but being honest with yourself is the first step to healing.

There are going to be days where nothing works. Where no matter how many eloquently delivered TED talks you listen to, or aorta bursting quotes your eyes consume, there will be days where you have to persuade yourself just to breathe, because even your involuntary acts of survival can’t go unnoticed by the all-seeing eye of vengeance. But it is during these hours, when we feel our most somber and neglected, that we must voice our tribulations. Don’t deny or hide from them. When we state them aloud to ourselves, reality can hit so we can find our way to cope.

Draw, sing, paint, chop, stir, taste, run, meditate, even write maybe. We tend to lose interest in any and everything that we loved before, so advising picking up a new hobby at first seems like sad joke, but coping is a must to survive. Everyone’s blue is a different shade, so there are several ways to go about treatment. Regardless, nothing works if we don’t. It gets better, is nothing more than a trademarked slogan if we don’t pain through the tireless work it takes to get better.

For all the days that you can barely open your eyes, for all the days your entirety is slung to the ground, leaving you to feel nothing, be patient with yourself. Take it one day at a time.

Your story’s not over.