Depression Is My Oldest Friend

Depression; an old friend, one of the most loyal and oldest friends that I have. His name is depression.

We met when I was 7

when I learned that my father could not afford having 3 kids and he had to work all throughout weekdays and weekends to keep up with the bills. We were at the mall counter, about to pay for the cheapest toys that we could get, he was about to pay, I saw his tattered leather wallet without enough money for the toys, I was looking at the Barbie that I took from one of the top shelf, I was eager to take it home and play with it but I took it down and said to him:

“Dad, I don’t need the Barbie. You don’t need to buy this for me.”

He smiled, he still took the Barbie and paid for it. So, every time my cousins come to play, I hid that Barbie so no one can touch it.

When I was 15, depression was my schoolmate.

I entered a private school in Manila, for the last 4 years of high school, I would always cry if I got a grade lower than 85, I could not afford to fail. Every Time I go home, I always pray that I pass that Math exam or the Chemistry exam, you see I am not good with numbers nor calculations so I did my best, befriended all the top students just so I could have a study lunch with them, did not care if I look stupid asking all the step by step process on how to calculate a single equation or problem. All I wanted was to pass and graduate.

I graduated year 2010.

When I was 17 I discovered that I was good with words and singing and making up beats and tunes and I turned all my demons into songs.

Whatever I was struggling with I wrote them on a piece of paper and then it took over the white wall of my room. Rock music is being blasted into my room and my mom calls it satanic and a form of rebellion, I called it music and it was the only form of escape that I had back then. Music saved me from all my suicidal attempts.

When I was 19 depression formed into little cystic acnes which covered my entire face

I was competing in a pageant and I got bullied for having acne. They were all asking how could someone like me be our school representative? We are not going to win. It was all the talk in our school, The University’s representative for the coming pageant is ugly. I went home and cried myself to sleep.

The pageant day came and I won. Brain still reigns supreme over Beauty and that faith and prayer would always be my weapon of choice.

When I was 21, I got in and out of various relationships.

The ending would always be that I was too much and not enough all at the same time. Depression came in the form of social media, I would keep track of all the guys that I had and look at them being happy and all with their current beau’s and I would end up asking myself after I got my fill of social stalking “What the hell is wrong with me?” Often than not I would compare myself, it is one of the destructive parts of being human and to tell you the truth it has become an ugly habit of mine that I am trying to leave behind.

Now I am 23

Depression came in the form of bills and being overworked. Weekdays would go by, I am consuming too much caffeine and basking on radiation through the computer screen, through out the day I would plan what I will do in the weekend but it will never be the case, I’ll usually take my weekends to loathe myself on how fat I am and why I can’t compete in pageants anymore because I am “overweight” and I’ll end up promising myself that I am going to finish the Murakami book that I bought two months ago just so I can escape my own problems and just worry about the protagonist’s own issue or promise myself that I am going to watch a bunch of series just so I could forget my life in exchange of a good weekend marathon.

But at the end of the day, you will survive.

I met depression when I was 7 and yet here I am, A 23 year old girl with a tad tendency to act like a complete child that needs care and attention and depression is just a shiny trophy made of pain and scars from all the things I went through.

If you feel like you are losing all hope and about to give up know that better days are coming.

You owe it to that little child inside of you, remember your 7 year old self and make sure that she is protected at all costs, you did not survive all these painful years for nothing. You deserve to see the bright days ahead of you. You’ll get through it, we will get through it, you and I. Just remember to push through it and know that there is a bigger life out there just waiting for you one day at a time.