On Depression
I feel like I should open this article with a grand sweeping phrase that encompasses the enormity of life. It would be something like “Life is a mystery” or “The world is too big” but those don’t seem to fit for some reason.
Those things are true though, the world is too big and life is indeed a mystery but to correctly express the feeling of it all one would have to gather every circumstance and every tiny thing in their life and write a volumes long, at times quite boring, yet ultimately fascinating tome on the whole thing and I fear even that wouldn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the tip of the iceberg.
We all have times, though, when it gets to be too much. When the enormous intensity of being human draws out of us that last inkling of stability. We all break at some point or another. It may come at the end of a long week, one where the only thing on your mind was the intense dissatisfaction with your place in the world, the overwhelming and nagging notion that you needed to escape but you couldn’t. Maybe because of this feeling you went out drinking with the guys to let off some steam but really the only steam you let off was your dwindling energy for putting up with things. You just feel tired. So tired. Maybe tired isn’t even the right word but that’s the one you tell everybody because no other word comes close to describing how you feel.
You just want the winter to come because when it snows, you can put up the hood on your sweatshirt, you can hide under the blankets, and it’s quiet. Dead quiet. And when you go out on your deck for a cigarette at 2 a.m. you can hear the blood rushing in your ears but little else. The snow falls silently but gracefully and you know for the first time in a long time it feels nice. You are alone here and now and you can finally think.
We all have anxieties. There are times when we all think just too damn much and we wish the brain rattling around in our skull would just, please, shut the fuck up. It’s true you’ve had fun in your life and you know what it feels like, but the idea of being around your friends at this moment sickens you for some reason. It’s just all too much.
You need to know though. That it’s ok to feel like that.
It’s ok to feel the immense frustration with your efforts at life and to just want close up shop and not converse with anyone for days.
It’s ok to not want any of it anymore.
It’s ok to be alone and to think and to be frustrated. No one should feel guilty for being depressed. You may feel like a burden to those who are closest but in that period of nothingness, the ones who stick around are the ones who are worth it.
The human condition is a multifaceted tapestry of ups and downs, lefts and rights, loose threads and stitching mistakes. There are times when the one mistake you made sits there and glares at you and you keep staring at it hoping somehow you could make it go away or you undo the entire row of stitching to get at it but it’s already too mired and it can’t be corrected.
What makes a person though is whether they decide to keep stitching despite the blemish. Soon the row is finished and then the next ten rows are finished and you look at the thing and it’s pretty nice even with the blemish there.
I’ve often told my friends who are suffering that the easiest but bravest thing one can do in those periods is to just keep waking up in the morning. Keep opening your eyes and if you have to lay on the couch all day waiting for bedtime just keep doing it.
Time will pass and when you’re ten rows down the line you can look at your life and realize that although there was that one glaring blemish, the rest of it looks pretty good.
Everyone has blemishes in their life, even the ones who seem to have it all together. They may hide it better but they exist just as presently floating on the sweeping up and down waves of life.
You’re ok. Just know that.
It’s ok to want to be alone. It will be ok when you don’t.