Yep, you heard me. It really is. I have been struggling with depression since I was probably about 14 years old. I don’t think it has ever really and truly gone away. Sometimes I like to think that I feel better, and sometimes I REALLY do feel better. Sometimes I think I might actually be free and clear of being just plain freaking miserable.
But alas, no, the depression always seems to creep its way back.
I have tried antidepressants, and yeah, they do help. Really they do. And really, I probably should be on them. But I have no health insurance, no job at the moment, no money. So it makes getting things, even simple medications, very difficult.
So I deal with depression.
Someone I know recently told me that in order to not be depressed anymore, I just had to catch myself when I started to feel like I was headed downwards emotionally. She told me to make a list of things I liked to do that made me happy, and when I started to feel that down turning, to do the things on the list. She gave me ideas like watching a comedy, and thinking of the really great moments in my life.
Well sure, that works… sometimes! But not all the time. Because like I said, depression is a bitch.
It makes me hate me. Unfortunately I do hate me, especially when I am depressed.
When I am depressed, its hard to see past my faults. I am totally socially inept when it comes to people. I don’t understand why this is. The closest explanation I have is that I never had the opportunities to learn proper social skills. I didn’t really have any friends when I was little, and the few that I did got so annoyed with me, they would just give up. I had one, and still have one, who just sorta accepts me for me. That always amazed me. But anyway, I didn’t have friends, my parents were USELESS when it came to trying to learn how to be a normal human. My mother was uber strict about everything, so trying to figure out what was right and wrong was pretty much a hopeless cause since EVERYTHING I did was wrong to her. In middle and high school I did get some friends. But they were all like me, loners, hopeless, depressed, stoners who just sort of moseyed on through the day until they could get high, or go to sleep, or do something insanely stupid that would be amusing for a few minutes. Even then, even with the loners, I was a loner. I have many of these people as friends on facebook, and even the ones I considered to be some of my best friends, don’t know me at all. Don’t know the slightest thing about me. Probably don’t really care. It hurts to know that I never really connected with ANYONE. It hurts to know that is probably the main reason WHY I have no idea, now, how to hold on to a real relationship.
I have no social skills. I am 27 years old and I don’t really know how to be NORMAL. I mean I am not completely hopeless, but I struggle with basics, like how to react when people say things. How NOT to say the first damn thing that comes to my head. When to talk, when to shut up, when to give advise, when to listen. All these things are learned by trial and error. I didn’t have any of that, and now that I am older, not many people have the patience to deal with it. I suppose I am not the only one. But I guess that many people don’t really CARE that they don’t seem to have these basic skills, me on the other hand, I do. I thank GOD every day for my Daddy (my bdad) for he is the only one who seems to have enough patience to not only love me unconditionally, put up with me, support me, be my best friend AND try to tell me WHEN I do something wrong, so that maybe I can fix it. God bless the small miracles in life.
It’s like the core of my very personality is just defective, and try as I might, I can’t seem to make it completely right.
My body sucks, years of depression (theres the bitch again!) have taken its toll on me. Everyone handles things differently. I sleep, a lot, and eat. Its my vice, my addiction I suppose I could call it. Funny I can spill my heart and soul out but can’t talk about the fact that I have an eating disorder. Due to this, the general nature of food is when you eat it in excess, you gain weight. I have been getting fat since I was 12. I succeeded fairly quickly. And now my body is something I like to think belongs in a circus with little kids staring at me. Okay so I am not that bad, but I am fat. Fat enough to not really fit into clothes right. Fat enough that I can’t just buy a bra at wal mart anymore. Fat enough that EVERYTHING is difficult, that EVERYTHING doesn’t really fit. Things people who are of more normal size don’t think twice about. Like airline seats, lawn chairs, and sitting next to someone thats bigger than a toothpick at the movies. Its embarassing, it’s the one thing I hate most about myself. My Daddy is my saving grace on that too, he eats like I do. Only somehow blessidly, as he is a man, is not QUITE as fat as I am. But I am watching him die, from diabetes, from high blood pressure, from heart disease. Its not a fun thing. And knowing what is doing it to him, and knowing that I am headed right there. He is 48 years old, he shouldn’t be as sick as he is, but I am going to be sicker than him.
Depression does this. And it works in mysterious ways since no two people react quite the same. But its a disease none the less, one that eats at you from the inside out.
And for me, no one knows. NO ONE knows. Sure some people know I am depressed, but no one has a clue when I am in my room alone that really I am curled up within myself. No one knows how often I wish I wasn’t born, because I feel like everyone I know would have benefited from this. The really deep depression makes me feel like I just shouldn’t be here, that I was just a god damned f’ up to begin with so why the heck am I here? What purpose do I serve other than to cause others stress and pain? It makes me so angry that I just can’t seem to be the person I want to be. I feel like life was wasted on me. That maybe my aparents would have been happier if they had just adopted a kid that actually FIT in their family, one that tried harder, did better, and didn’t screw up all the time. Maybe my bmom would feel better if I had just had the life she wanted me to have, if I just WAS that kid that could fit. If I was actually a well established human being that she actually LIKED. The grown up one that could be her friend and not annoy the f@%k out of her. If I wasn’t born, than no one would even HAVE to know I had been here. No one would have to have suffered the pain that I cause, no one would be any wiser. Maybe they would be happier.
Then I wouldn’t have to hurt.
Because G Damn it, depression hurts. It makes me think these things, it makes me FEEL them inside!
My only blessing is that somewhere deep inside me I do know the truth. I know that I am worth something, and that my aparents probably wouldn’t have been happy with anyone. My bmom is probably happy somewhere that I am alive, if for nothing else that she has someone to email all the time, and an eternal connection to my bdad. That I didn’t REALLY cause undue pain to my bdad just because I am alive. That I DO deserve to be here, and I DO deserve to be happy. I DO come out of that shell, I am lucky, because I REALLY DO. The deep depression, the deep dark nasty life sucking mean bitch depression isn’t there all the time. I am blessed with that, because sometimes I look back and wonder how the hell I even survived that.
I think I survived because when everything is always dark, you get used to it, you get adjusted. But now, now I get some light, I get some happy, I get some sunshine, and optimism and love. I hold on to those for dear life when it gets dark. Because now that I know what light is, the dark seems so much darker, and so much deeper. But I hold on to that light.
