The Truth About Life With Depression

I feel dehydrated. Like if I’m 70% water then 25% of me is gone.

I guess part of me thought that depression would be like in the movies. Vital, and sort of glamorous. Like a red-lipsticked woman in a silk robe taking baths and smoking until sunrise.

But it’s not.

It’s binge eating chocolate and noodles until you’re sick or sometimes eating nothing at all.

It’s having panic attacks because you haven’t done the dishes for the 6th day in a row.

It’s sleeping until noon and waking up still exhausted even though you went to bed at 10 PM.

It’s your boyfriend telling you that he doesn’t know how much longer he can do this because he feels like he’s giving and giving and not getting any love back.

It’s the isolation of confiding your feelings to someone you trust and being met with “Well, can’t you just try harder to feel better?”

It’s sobbing in your car in the morning because you’re not sure how you can get out and face the day.

It’s watching endless movies just in the hope that you might actually feel something today.

It’s trying really hard not to feel anything because it’s all too much.

It’s trying to get help and waiting two months before you can talk to a counselor because your issues “aren’t serious enough”

It’s knowing exactly what you have to do to get better but being too overwhelmed to start.

It’s having the passion sucked out of you to the point where even the things you love the most feel like a chore.

But it’s getting better.

It’s having people you barely talk to reach out and ask if you’re okay.

It’s having a dance party in your underwear to a song that makes you vibrate.

It’s cry-laughing three times in two days about life’s funny happenings.

It’s having someone hold you and tell you that they love you.

It’s discovering you actually do like cappuccinos after all.

It’s feeling a spark of passion to go after the things you love, even if they’re just small.

It’s breaking into a run on the way to the grocery store and feeling alive for the first time in a while.

It’s noticing the new leaves forming on the trees outside your window.

It’s telling someone how you feel and having them say “I’ve felt that way too and I’m here for you.”

Depression is harder than I thought it would be, back when I was an outsider. But I can’t help but be grateful for it enveloping me. As terrible as it is, I am learning. I am becoming more powerful and learning to let go of everything that weighs me down.

I am becoming lighter.

And one day soon, I’ll fly.