Hi everyone,
This doesn't matter. I think I just need to exhale deeply and I guess I'll do it publicly.
I haven't been well for quite some time. My depression and anxiety have really sent me into a whirlwind. I want to say I don't have control of my emotions, but the truth is that for the longest time I've had none at all.
There is a deep empty feeling, almost like a heartbreak…. Like, when you see your ex with someone else and you desperately want to be that person next to her/him… but instead of an ex and a heartbreak, it's watching other people just being alive and feeling a deep sorrow of knowing I'll never be one of those people who just lives.
I'll always be one of those people who aches every single day for reasons I'll never really understand.
If it was a heartbreak it would be easy. But instead it's more a lack of heart. Like, I don't know why I'm here. It hurts and it sucks and I have no way out, so I'm just forced to live and breathe and not even want something better; no, I'd never indulge myself with the thought of something better. But if it could just be less worse, less exhausting, less dark, that would be bleak but bearable.
I knew things were bad when I started crying because I missed my mom. Daily, almost every hour, I just needed a hug from her, but because of Covid19 I wasn't able to visit her. But then in mid-May, my wife decided that getting me help was important enough to take some risks, so she invited my mom and brother to visit us.
I wish I could say it helped (and in the long run, it did), but in the moment it made me feel so, so much worse.
I wanted more from my mom than what she could give. I asked a million questions and she answered them honestly, but I was frustrated because none of the answers explained why I am how I am.
“Well, if it wasn't dad, and it wasn't you, maybe my grandparents weren't as perfect as I remember them.”
“Your grandparents were great,” she sighed. “Honey, you just have a disease. There isn't an answer for that.”
“Okay,” I cried, “then why can't you all just let me go? You know I have this disease but you demand I stay alive and I am tired and I want to go. I'm done. Why won't anyone let me go?”
Mom took a deep breath, “because,” she said, “you wouldn't let anyone else go, either. We depend on each other to stay.”
I could do nothing but sob at the truth of the matter. I'm not the only one in my family with this disease, but sometimes I am the only one who thinks I'm unfairly and particularly burdened by it. Or maybe not. Fog of war and all that.
I don't want to share the details of what happened after that. Suffice it to say, things got immediately worse. When my mom left to go back home I hugged her tight, pretty sure it was the last time I would ever do so. It bothered me how frail she seemed. She's my mom, she's always been a rock, but now when i hug her it feels like she'll break.
We said our goodbyes, then I went back to bed, pulled the covers over my head, and sobbed some more.
I went back on medication, and it's been a really bumpy ride. I sleep almost all the time. Seriously, I take several naps a day. And feeling things again is overwhelming. Everyone I love says they're happy to have me back, but it doesn't feel happy to me.
The thing about depression, or at least how I experience it, is that walking through the world as an empty husk waiting to die is a lot more comfortable than having/feeling/experiencing emotions.
My disease has made feeling anything at all painful and overwhelming. For example, today I curled up with my dog and sobbed because I want to be as amazing and wonderful as she thinks I am.
I'm not, and I never will be. But the way that dog, the way all of my dogs, look at and see me as a God is overwhelming.
I'm scared of how much I love my wife. It doesn't feel safe to love so deeply. It doesn't feel safe to think of her when she's not around or to look at her when she's here and feel like she's the axis upon which I orbit.
I want to spend the rest of my life with her but I want the rest of my life to be short. I don't and can't comprehend how other people find true love comforting. It is terrifying.
When I felt nothing at all, it was easy.
But now the stakes are so high and goddammit I don't like to gamble.
There have been small victories. Like when I realized that for a week I walked everywhere instead of driving, and when I I went anywhere I actually did my hair and put on some makeup and felt pretty.
And, more importantly, it had been days since I wondered when I would just fucking die. That's progress, and it matters.
But here I am. Not actively wanting/planning to die, not an empty husk of a person, not completely devoid of emotion.
And I kind of want to go back to where I was.
What people with depression often don't talk about, or often even realize, is that the darkness is actually comfortable. It's predictable and loyal and always there.
When we take that blanket off it's scary. Being soft and vulnerable is its own hell. I don't have the tools to handle this because I've never had to and fuck it all I just want to go back to feeling nothing at all.
I've written this over the course of a couple weeks, so I don't expect it to make sense. But, Oh! How I want everything to make sense right now.
I want to feel better, and in many ways I do. But I can't help wanting to go back to the darkness, wrapping it around me like a blanket and a shield.
I think I'm more comfortable wanting to die than I am loving my wife and my dogs and my brother and sister and mom; than I am being outraged about black people being killed for no reason. Than I am thinking about my nieces and nephews and when they go back to school and do shooting drills.
The thing is…. I'm incapable of being happy. Because even when I am I'm terrified.
And I don't know what to do, because I want to go back to dark. There is no medication that will make me want to live.
There is medication that will make me do things besides lay in bed and drink. Make me go for walks, ride a bike, brush my hair.
But nothing will ever make me want to live. And I just feel like trying is giving my loved ones false hope.
At the end of every day I'll still drift off to sleep fantasizing about my own death.
And everything that should make me want to stay makes me hurt harder.
None of it is supposed to make me hurt, but all of it does.
Tuesday, Jun 23, 2020 · 1:13:37 PM +00:00
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BoiseBlue
I didn't mean to publish this, I've just been writing on it and go back to kind of keep a journal I guess. Idk. I'd unpublish it but that would be weird. I'm sorry. Don't worry about me. I am not at the end of my journey quite yet.
Wednesday, Jun 24, 2020 · 2:34:57 AM +00:00
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BoiseBlue
Since I didn't plan to publish this (but glad that I did!) I'm overwhelmed by the response. I apologise and hope to get to all of you who've given me such a strong show of support.
Until then, enjoy this and know I'm not in any danger of harming myself, so PLEASE don't worry about me.