If Your Depression is Like Mine

There will be okay days. Days when nothing is really wrong, and maybe some things even seem a little bit right. There will be days of blankness. Complete nothingness. You’ll feel entirely unaffected, almost catatonic. Like someone could punch you in the face and you’d just stand there staring into the void. There will be days when you’ll sob and scream in agony all by yourself. These will be the days when you envision yourself at the bottom of the deepest, darkest abyss with absolutely no way to escape. These will be the days that the length and the magnitude and the misunderstanding of your illness will nearly crush you. Maybe on some of these days, you’ll end up in the emergency room. There will be doctors everywhere asking you the same questions over and over again. You’ll truly believe that no one can help you. Maybe they’ll even admit you. They’ll take your shoes and your phone and anything you could harm yourself with and put you in a room with a security camera next to someone who was committed by a court order that morning. But you won’t stay there long. You’ll go home in a day or two or seven with a little more resolve, a little more fight. You’ll spend several days a week in appointments trying to find your way back. You’ll look for answers—a new drug, a new therapist, a miracle. You’ll find some of the relief you’ve been looking for eventually. The new drug will work, the new therapist will understand you, the new activities you’ve found to distract yourself will help. You’ll sleep soundly at night. You’ll enjoy your favorite sandwich again.  The color will return to your face and the sparkle to your eyes. You’ll see everything more clearly. You’ll realize who you are apart from all the noise. You’ll live to fight another day and tomorrow, the fight won’t be so difficult.   

Over the course of all of this, some people will hurt you, try to destroy you even. Do things to you that cause unimaginable pain on top of all the pain that already plagues your mind and soul. Others will help you, hold you, comfort you. They’ll say little things that you’ll lock away inside of you, remind yourself of when your own destructive thoughts start creeping in. You’ll be so keenly aware that their presence may be all that keeps you from collapsing in on yourself like a star in its final stages of life. But in the end, your friends, your family, your doctors, your acupuncturist, your therapist, your yoga teacher, your minister, your rabbi, your counselor will not save you. You will save yourself.