Day 3429
Hello my friends. It’s been quite some time, and for that I apologize. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to post, I’ve just had some pressing issues taking priority as of late, and the longer you go without doing something, the more difficult it becomes to start up again.
In the past, I’ve shared stories and thoughts from my personal life along with short writings. Today, I want to share both, and I’m going to clue you in on what’s been up with me recently. FAIR WARNING, from this point forward, this post will be far more personal than anything I’ve posted in the past. Writing about this topic helps clear my mind, but voicing it openly is something I’ve never done, mainly because I’ve always been very private about certain portions of my life. With that said, if there’s even one person out there who can draw support from the knowledge that they’re not alone, I want to share.
This will probably surprise most people who know me, but I suffer from depression. I’m peppy, active, and I love to laugh. I’m sure that, to most, I must come across as excessively, perhaps annoyingly, energetic and optimistic. Inside my mind, it’s a different story. It’s not that I’m constantly, or even usually, melancholy. It’s that when I’m down, I feel severely, oppressively, inescapably, suffocatingly sad, to the point of desperation. I’ve dealt with depression since I was a little boy and my parents fought regularly. It got worse when they went through a protracted and excruciating divorce with an accompanying custody battle. From those early days onward, I’ve had bouts with the darkness intermittently. It can attack at any time, whether something particularly sad occurred to trigger it or not. I’ve recognized the sinking feeling of its onset even when having the most exciting, fun experience on the outside. For me, it’s especially pronounced when I’m alone for long periods of time, because I find it more difficult to distract myself.
For the longest time, I thought it was normal, that everyone dealt with the same sadness as me, and I was simply weak for being unable to control or contain it. Even when I realized that wasn’t the case, I was reluctant to share. I didn’t want people to think of me as a sad person, because that’s not how I see myself. I’m not a sad person. I’m a happy person fighting a monster from within. Even some of my closest friends and family never knew I was grappling with this beast until recently. Some still don’t know. Over the years, I got so good at hiding my sadness and just smiling through it all that I thought I would continue that way for the rest of my life. I wanted my mask to become my face, and I hoped that the original one bearing all my pain would simply fade away.
The thing is, it didn’t go away. Throughout the years, I continued to have intense periods of sadness, and, without realizing it, I coped with this by keeping myself busy and constantly focusing on one goal after another. I would fill my hours so completely that I didn’t have any time to think about the sadness lurking just beneath the surface. It’s odd to say, but having free time actually stressed me out, because it meant that I didn’t have something to occupy my mind.
Midway through last year, my life underwent some vast changes. Nearly my entire group of close, college friends moved away. I moved into an apartment on my own. My position at my company evolved, and people I had grown close to left the company. Suddenly, I had a lot of free time, and I didn’t know what to do with it or who to spend it with. Ironically, the freedom I had fought so hard for became unbearable at times, and yet, I still held it in, because that’s what I had always done. In late September, I started suffering from anxiety, an outgrowth from my depression that I had never felt before. In December, I had a panic attack so severe that I went to the hospital, thinking I was having a heart attack. It lasted nearly an entire day, a whole day of constant tension and fear. These anxiety attacks steadily grew worse and more frequent in their intensity, because I wasn’t doing anything to attack their source.
My entire life, I had always distracted myself and focused all my energy on just holding on until I felt better, but I started feeling so bleak and fearful for so long that I couldn’t outlast it anymore. I would sit at work, completely paralyzed and unable to do anything, because I was so afraid, of what I’m not sure. I’d try to outthink the panic attack, rationalizing the irrational, when the source of the attack was the very same mind doing the thinking. It’s a bit like trying to dodge raindrops in a heavy pour, you evade some, but ultimately, it’s exhausting and futile. Eventually, my thoughts grew so dark that I began to contemplate hurting myself, and that was when I knew that I had to reach out. This was no longer something I could handle on my own.
I had a couple of days so desolate and hopeless that I called a hotline and eventually went to a clinic for support. Since then, I’ve gotten help from various sources, and while some days are definitely still bad, I’m confident that things are getting better, and that I’m going to get better, because I’m finally doing something about it. What I want to share with you now is a short piece of writing I did while waiting in the clinic to see a counselor. I was several hours into a day-long anxiety attack, and I was afraid for my life. It’s non-fictional. In fact, it’s probably the realest thing I’ve ever written.
Waiting Room
Fragmented souls, assembled here, not by force but not by choice. Vacant stares through glassy eyes, screams for help from behind blank faces. Broken minds, struggling to stay afloat. How did I get here? No one here wants to admit they have a problem, yet they’re all here, where people come when they have a problem. Averting each other’s gazes, sleeping, waiting. The waiting room is a holding cell for an indefinite sentence. In and out of consciousness, hours passing, others coming and going, yet nothing truly changing. A man in a weathered jacket whispers to himself, clutching his notebook for dear life. The talker, who never stops talking, presses his winding, convoluted stories and thoughts on all around, prying them from their trances for validation. Shifting in my seat, struggling for comfort, nothing drives insanity like time. Why are you here, man across the room, with a tired and beaten face? I am scared. My mind is slipping, and I’m losing control. Fighting against something inside, trying to rationalize the irrational, a dwindling bevy of resistant thoughts drowning in the undertow of darkness. A suffocating, sly blanket, slowly slipping over me. A paralyzing force that poisons your spirit and takes you as its host. That’s why I’m here. That’s what depression is. Like everyone here, I need help, because I don’t want this to be my reality anymore. I’ve fought this war on my own until I can no more. I either call in reinforcements or there will be no more me to fight for, and I refuse to acknowledge the latter. I have to hope, even when my strength is gone, because I’m not alone. I have to hope that someday the door will open and they’ll call my name, and they’ll help me find the light again.
One of the hardest things about depression is how alone you feel. It’s an abyss, and when you’re in that darkness, it seems like there’s no one else in it with you, but that’s a lie. The moment I started opening up to people was the moment I realized that I’m not alone, and that gave me strength. There are others out there dealing with the same affliction as you, and you don’t have to handle it on your own. That can really be the hardest part, reaching out to those around you, or perhaps even admitting it to yourself, but once you make that step, it does get easier. The important thing is to take that step, because grinning and bearing through constant misery is no way to go through life. I only realized that recently, but it has made a world of difference.
Will J.J. 