THE EVERYDAY BATTLE

“For my entire life I have been the happy girl. My family, my friends, even people I’ve just met think of me as a joyful person, and I love being that person. Finding the joy in life was always my favorite quality about myself because I knew that with that mindset I could tackle anything that came my way.

I’ve been struggling for the past year with how to convey what I feel in a way that is understandable to someone who has not lived with depression. For weeks at a time I will wake up with this incredible weight on my chest. I am not sad. I am not angry. I am not happy. I simply am. I exist in a place that is not here or there but entirely on my own. The words broken and desperate come to mind.

I want to feel like me again. I want to be that happy, joyful, optimistic girl I used to be. Some days are worse than others, and some days I think I might come out of this cycle of frustration and pain.

On days that I used to consider a good day I now find myself swallowing tears and trying to keep it together. The happiest of news brings a slight moment of elation, and a huge fall that ends with me sobbing on the side of the road because I couldn’t see where I was driving through the shroud of tears. Some days I don’t feel anything. I don’t care about anything. I don’t want to see or hear anyone, let alone talk to them. There is no reason for these things, and that is the most frustrating part of this. I still have moments of happiness, contentedness, comfort and joy. But it never lasts. The moment passes and the weight slowly returns, leaving me desperate for the relief I felt only a moment ago.

I turned to alcohol a few times, but the numbing feeling was one that I already lived with on a daily basis. It made it easier to get swept away with the noise and company of those around me, but at the end of the night when I return to my bed there is no comfort. There is only the longing to be better again. A very select few know about what I have been going through, and even fewer understand. Hell, even I can’t understand it sometimes. Why can’t I be happy? Why can’t I be okay for more than 12 hours at a time? Without realizing it, who I thought I was, and who I wanted to be is gone and this unrecognizable person is standing in front of me in the mirror. I’ve tried talking about it. I’ve tried not talking about it. I’ve even gotten to the point I never thought I would get to. The first couple months I was not suicidal. I did not want to die, and I thought that no matter what I would never get to that point. After weeks of relentless anguish and pain I just wanted it to stop. The thought crossed my mind that maybe I didn’t have to do this anymore, and that it would be so much easier to stop existing than have to fight so hard to be alive. I dismissed it and told myself that I couldn’t actually do that.”

PRETENDING IT’S OKAY

“I started to rationalize these thoughts when they started to enter my mind several times throughout the week. I told myself that my boyfriend would be okay. We were drifting, and I knew that, so I knew that he could move on and still be happy. Maybe this would let him find his true love. My siblings were understanding people, and they would find solace in the fact that I was not hurting anymore. My niece and two nephews were still young enough to forget me without hurting. Yes, they would miss me, but after a little bit they would make new memories to overwrite the loss. My parents would be devastated at first, but they, too, would understand that living with the pain was more unbearable than I could take.

The next day, Mom texted me to tell me that she loved me, and that she was thinking of me and couldn’t wait for me to come home. I broke down and started bawling. It was just like every other text she would send me, but I realized how much it would hurt her and Dad if they knew I felt like this. They would blame themselves, and I could never do that to them. The fear was no longer there. I wasn’t afraid of dying. I knew that everything would just stop. Life took over for a while, and I didn’t act on my notions. I went to class, went to work and tried to hide what I was feeling. It became an automatic reaction to smile when I could feel someone questioning if I was okay, and I convinced myself that people didn’t really want to know the truth. Nobody wanted to hear me say that it had been weeks since I felt okay. Nobody wanted me to talk about my depression or my thoughts of suicide. I know people cared about me, but hearing someone talk about depression makes things difficult and uncomfortable. It changes relationships and the ease of being around people disappears. I didn’t want people to worry about it, especially after a family member died, and my family had enough to be upset about. I know they would drop everything for me, and I didn’t want to be that burden.

Things got a little harder after my boyfriend broke up with me. Any sense of direction I had before was gone, and any shred of hope I was holding onto for things getting better disappeared in the following weeks. Things escalated in July when I actually cut myself in the shower. Instead of feeling relief I was distraught. How had it gotten this bad? When did I become this girl? I am not this girl. I sat down in the shower and cried. I couldn’t let anyone see what I had done. I felt pathetic. How many times had I heard of people doing these things and wondered how anyone could ever be so selfish and weak?”

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

“It had been weeks since I had been okay, and I was desperate for the pain to end. I went home every weekend in August until school started and tried to stay busy. School made that a lot easier. Mom and Dad were texting me at least once a week asking to meet or saying they loved me. It became very clear to me that no matter how bad things got that I couldn’t bring myself to hurt them. The thoughts never stopped, but when they did come back I made myself promise to think of my family and what that would do to them. I put up pictures and notes everywhere

The last five weeks have been hard, but Wednesday was the hardest day I have had since the night I cut myself. It was just another Wednesday. The whole day I struggled to remain okay. I felt mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted, and all I wanted to do was be “fine” for a second. To not feel anything. I went to Target. Shopping was always a numbing process, so I walked around for an hour hoping retail therapy would help. It didn’t so I went to the mall for more distractions. That was when I checked Twitter and read about Katie Burns. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Young college girl, close family and friends, beautiful, smart. It felt extremely familiar, and I couldn’t explain what I felt.

For the next two hours I tried on clothes and cried in the dressing rooms of every clothing store in the mall. I finally drove home and gathered myself before walking into the house. Every car was home, so I had to make it into my room without anyone seeing my face. One roommate came in and tried to cheer me up, but I didn’t know how to explain why I was so upset.

We went to Katie’s vigil together, and I watched the pain on people’s faces as they stood around the campanile. Some cried because the atmosphere was heavy, some because they imagined that happening to someone they loved, but I got the sense very few people could relate to how she felt. The tears rolling down my face were not tears of loss, but were tears of understanding.

I’m begging those of you who know where I am coming from to keep fighting. I don’t know that it will get better, or that someday you will wake up and it won’t be so hard to be alive. I have no idea what hardships lie ahead for you, or what joy could be waiting for you to discover it. What I do know is that we are loved. Someone loves us and would be lost without us in their world. It doesn’t always feel like that, and I understand how lonely it can be. I want everyone to know that there is another way. We can get through this together. Please talk to someone. I didn’t for the longest time, because I didn’t want to admit that I couldn’t handle this alone. I realize now that I am not alone, and neither are you. Even if nobody in your personal circle of people doesn’t understand what it feels like or what you are going through there are so many people who do. Never feel like you are inadequate, because you have worth. You have worth.”