Read This When Someone Tells You Your Depression Isn’t Real

He started to tell me about his bouts with depression, and how he had “discovered” a new part of himself that he didn’t know existed. This part of him that could feel things in such a way. A disconnection from himself. Like, an outer body experience.

And I had started to drift away. Not because his feelings were invalid, not that they didn’t matter, but because they were…..valid, and I had known them all too well. they weren’t anything new to me, or something to be ashamed of. But also weren’t worth the feeling of self discovery that it invoked in him, and I felt, ashamed almost, for thinking that way. But it’s true. There’s a spot for depression waiting in everyone. It’s almost unrealistic to think, that in a world such as this one, that there wouldn’t be. And that almost in a way, this innocent part of him had been broken. Exposed to the inevitable truth that this life can be so ugly at times for no reason. How cruel and unfair it can be. Or even just…..empty. Void.

Sometimes I wonder if depression even really is something as concrete a feeling as sadness. That it isn’t an imbalance of hormones, or something that needs to be climbed over, but more of a realization that we all reach. It isn’t just pessimism. You are not just a pessimist. You are a realist.

Sometimes the world is so ugly, there’s isn’t anything to feel good about. And that right there, is the truth. The truth we won’t tell ourselves. So instead we cover it. And give it this, blanket term,”depression”. And tell our loved ones that they can get through this. That there’s something to live for. That if we stuff enough pills down our throats for this quote unquote “disease” we’ll be able to stumble through this life finding happiness in our careers, that buy us houses filled with things we never get to see and families we never get to spend time with. Finding gratification in the hours we throw away earning money to pay for said things, because….this…is…the dream. And this is normal. Well I say BULLSHIT.

Depression is the little ounce of that realist still left inside of us, still yearning inside of us, that knows that this all isn’t REAL! This is not the life we dreamed of when we were still bright, and starry eyed, and the world was full of potential. Before we had “that isn’t realistic” tacked on to our dreams. Before we had “you can’t make a life off of that” tacked on to our dreams. Before we had “you should just do this instead” tacked on to our dreams. Before….before, when we were allowed to just dream. And we didn’t have to sell apart of ourselves in order to keep dreaming. And we didn’t have to put everything else in the world in front of the things that made us happy. And before doing something as simple, and as human….something so rightfully given to us, as dreaming, wasn’t just wishful thinking.

It’s a slap in the face really. Knowing that our hearts and our minds, and our souls lust for something else. Our souls long to be somewhere else! We our the image of God! We are thoughts, we are feelings, we are love, we are beyonddddd! We are….eternal beings, latched on the something so fragile and so minute as a human life. And how we could go on existing, we could, but this body is so limited. And therefore, I, am limited. And because I am limited. That means that my dreams can be too. That means I will never live out everything that I wish to be.

And that merely existing, is more tangible a thought than being able to really live. And that is my truth, and I do not think that it is wrong to feel such things. Or That anyone is wrong for feeling such things. We just have to stop acting like these feelings are obscure, that they aren’t something inclined to us by nature. And living out watered down versions of the lives we could have is not a depressing thought. And that it is not childish thinking. Those my friends are the pessimists. But maybe they aren’t wrong for feeling that way either, because the truth, is scary.

So whatever gets you through the night is fine by me. But just know that what you’re feeling is not unnatural. It is not weird. It is not unjustified or something to feel ashamed of. Or something that we all don’t already feel, we just feel it differently , and accept it differently. And label it differently. It is human, and we are all just that, human. And the sooner we accept that, that truth, the easier it’ll become.

The better it will be.