Living with Depression

This is something that that few people want to discuss or care to truly understand. More often than not people identify depression as a weakness, an inability to handle the day to day challenges that life throws at you. This as far from the truth as you could ever imagine. 

We all have down days, days when it feels like the universe is against us or where everything that could go wrong does and we feel like throwing in the towel. I know everyone has experienced this at some point in their life. It is not a nice place to be and often we will reassure ourselves with sayings like, ‘Every cloud has a silver lining;’ ‘It comes in threes’ or tomorrow will be a better day.’ And these sayings are all or mostly all true. I have often said that people who suffer from depression are some of the strongest and most resilient people you will ever meet. 

Mostly they are gentle people easily able to identify a darkness in others as they see through the facade that people portray. They are able to do this as most days they portray happiness when inside they are agonising over many different things all at once. They reach out because they know the feeling of loneliness or feeling isolated and don’t wish for others to feel the same way.

Many times they are the people whom you would least likely believe to struggle because on the surface they may appear to be 100% in control, they are good at showing the world this. They appear to be in control of their life because that’s what society wants to see.

For so long it has had such a stigma attached that this in is itself is part of the problem. We know that society does not accept people who suffer from depression and we are seen as weak. In order to fit in we portray an image of someone that is not who we are and we do so, to feel like we are accepted and belong. We hide our true self from the world out of fear of being shamed. Therefore not are we only battling with the internal emotions that trouble our souls, we are actually literally battling against who we are out of fear of being alienated if people come to know the deeper darker parts of your who we really are. 

If depression was understood perhaps society would be more accepting of us. They would care to know and understand us, rather than assume we are people who are negative and irrational. They would understand that where they experience bad days, we constantly battle the negativity and remind ourselves of the positives in life just to get through a day and its when our bodies and minds have tired from always looking for the goodness that we crack and we struggle to bounce back. 

Big life changes have a far bigger impact on someone suffering from depression because, already sometimes, we struggle to rationalise and so when we are faced with a big change, it can often seem the ‘end of the world’ and we question everything that got us to that point and play the game of ‘what if’ 

We question what we could have done differently that could have led to a better outcome or what would have been more acceptable to society. 

We question everything in life and sometimes this makes it hard for us to trust and open up to others about the darkness that troubles us. Sometimes we are blessed enough to connect with someone on a much deeper level than just a friendship. I am not talking about a physical connection either. This is different, it is a connection of the mind. 

When this happens, we tend to feel more open to sharing the darkness within us and we open ourselves up. This doesn’t happen often because more often than not we have been burned adding to the mistrust. Once we show our true-selves people often withdraw and push us away because it is easier to just not deal with us than to gain an understanding of why we think the way we do. This further compounds the feeling that we don’t belong and we are not normal. 

Living with depression is a daily struggle, a struggle for acceptance, a struggle for love, a struggle to feel wanted, a struggle to be needed. To know that we add value to life in some way for those around us. So many people who suffer end up taking their life, and many times people will say its the easy way out. I can assure you this is not at all what they were thinking, it was never about them giving up. We want to add to life and contribute to the life of those we love and sometimes we feel we are taking away from it we may need to be reassured that we are needed and that our existence is an addition to society.

I am, in no way saying, that living with someone who suffers from depression is easy. It certainly is not as their moods are unpredictable, and possibly you may feel like you are treading on eggshells, in fear you may say something that could set off an episode of moodiness and irrationality, its demanding and tiresome to meet their needs. If you are someone who lives with someone who suffers and you have chosen to stick by them and not run at the first sign of their weakness, well done and Thank you. Thank you for showing us that we can be accepted with all our imperfections and that we are needed and even WANTED.