Living with Depression

There are two major influences for this post, and I tip my hat and bow deeply to these two brilliant women. The first one is The Militant Baker's post on Bordeline Personality Disorder. The second one is Hyperbole And A Half's post on depression (I have linked to the second one before).

Also, tl;dr warning applies.

My early school years were not the happiest ones. People in my class went out of their way to make me miserable and by the time I was 12, I was suicidal. Or, more accurately, becoming suicidal at age 12 was a step up from the hell hole of an existence I had been living in. That meant that I gave enough fucks about life and death to know that I didn't want to live anymore. It wasn't really that I wanted to die. I just didn't want to feel the pain anymore.

My wish to not feel anything was granted a couple of years later, when my depression settled in with full force. I felt absolutely nothing. No happiness, no sadness, no anger, no annoyance. Nothing. I woke up in the morning, went to school, did my thing, went to theatre class, went home, watched TV, went to bed. Repeat. My insane mind saved my school grades and my acting skills made people not worry about me. And I got bored.

Not feeling anything after years of only feeling pain is amazing. For the first few months. It's like an extended holiday. The kind Shakespeare describes in Henry V:

If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wished-for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.

I was bored out of my skull. I tried many things, some stupid, some less stupid, to regain some sort of normalcy, but nothing helped. Sure, I felt excitement and calm when I was in Southern Africa in 2002, but come on. AFRICA. IS. AWESOME. Lions and elephants and sand and huge fuck-off trees and zebras. I love Southern Africa.

I wish I could say that the turning point out of the boredom was Hyperbole's Corn Of Awesomezoars, but I can't. My turning point was the death of my beloved Grannie (my maternal grandmother). Nothing NOTHING up to that point had hurt as much as losing her did. I cried myself to sleep for almost two years, and being allowed to feel sorrow and being shoved head first into grief opened the flood gates. I could feel again, if only sadness. It took a while, but then the other emotions started returning.

And then I graduated and became unemployed. Started at a university and failed my whole second year. And the self-loathing/self-hate/depression spiral started up again. Because, you see, depression isn't something you get rid of that easily. It sticks with you, especially the kind that is caused by a hormonal imbalance in the brain. Depression caused by trauma and depression caused by hormonal imbalance have different coping mechanisms (in my experience. I can only speak for myself) and as far as I know, depression caused by hormonal imbalance is a life long commitment to routines, self-affirmation, and sometimes medication. Personally, I don't give a flying bother if I'm on SSRI for the rest of my life, as long as I don't have to get stuck in the Depression Swamp again.

With SSRI medication, I don't have the rapid mood swings, I don't live in a constant fog, and my mind isn't always a weird version of Kermit the Frog performing Benny Hill in a chipmunk voice (I still get said performance when I'm stressed out, though). I still cope with an insane fear of being abandoned and I still work hard at the self-esteem bit, but the voices have been muted and Kermit is usually sleeping, so right now, life is a whole lot better than it has been.

Try to remember this when talking to someone who is living with depression: Telling them to cheer up is usually the absolute worst thing you can do. That only adds guilt to whatever they're struggling with. Instead, offer to LISTEN WITHOUT JUDGEMENT and don't take it personally if you get no reaction. A person who feels nothing experience stress in social situations, because they don't know how to react. Just keep trying. One day, they'll stumble upon that Piece Of Corn and when they do, you will be remembered as the Friend Who Helped, instead of The Annoying One.