Let's Talk Depression

It's been a while since I did a blog like this, I guess because it weighs too much on me. It feels as if talking about it doesn't even matter. And it's more than just the feeling, it's also a reality. We live in a world where unless you're beautiful, nobody really cares. It's unfair, but really, it's a part of life that we all have to live with. These self-esteem movements and love yourself moments have been complete failures. Sure you feel better for a little while, then the reality of life hits you and you feel worse than before. Social media is the worst for depression. It builds up feelings of isolation, worthlessness and creates an environment where depression festers. I've been limiting my posts and my presence because of it. I just don't want to have to deal with the feelings that come with it. I'm proud of my accomplishments, the work that I put out here and when it doesn't go as planned it really puts me off of doing blogs or creating. I want to believe that my blog is cool and great, but it's not. It will never be anything other than my pathetic attempts at trying to find myself and my passions. Maybe that's why people like it; they enjoy watching me swing from manic to depressed, to hilarious to one dimensional, from a baking boy to random guy. I have so many limbs to the tree of my personality that sometimes it feels like I'm multiple people in one. And then I can't concentrate. It feels like they're all fighting to reach the surface and I can't focus. 

I got asked why I've not been talking about my depressive episodes as much on my blog and the answer is simple. Nobody cares. My talking about it, especially with a bunch of people who only want to use this suffering for entertainment, is not helping me. It never has and it never will. Talking about things for me doesn't change anything. Any expressing of feelings verbally doesn't do anything for me. I need to work it out internally. I'm one of those people who are very disconnected from others. I have relationships but they're pretty much all empty. When I've discussed these feelings of emptiness, worthlessness or other feelings that bring on intense negative feelings, I've been invalidated, babied, ignored or told that it will all be okay. Sometimes its a combination of all of those things. It makes me feel like I don't even have the right to express these feelings-to even have these feelings. It's like I should be stronger than this. I shouldn't be so weak. I hide behind jokes after I've expressed something that's weighing on me or I say something really explicit so that people will be distracted. It's so exhausting trying to hide everything, be something different for everyone. It feels like I need to be something perfect, even though I know that perfect is a stupid, abstract concept. 

Hiding is common with mental health struggles. So many of us hide our struggles out of shame, embarrassment, fear or the thought or belief that it will not matter if you say anything. I feel like who I am isn't good enough for anyone. I don't think that I'm good enough for myself, so how can I ever be enough for anyone else. I wear so many different masks. I don't want anyone to know what's inside. Somethings I want to hide because I've faced the ridicule, the torment and the torture that comes with being different. Having to play a different role in all these different settings is so draining, numbing and it's stripping. I don't know who I really am. I can't give people defining characteristics about myself. I'm just this empty cup, wanting to be filled with something-anything. I'll act out in horrible ways for attention that I crave. I feel this void and I don't care if it's good or bad attention as long as I'm not forgotten. I've been forgotten or pushed away so long that I'm almost afraid that if I'm not obnoxious or strange in a way that I can control that I will be forgotten. I will be even more of a nobody. 

It feels like nothing I do matter or ever will matter. Thoughts of suicide are constant with me. Even when I feel 'good'. It feels like there is no escape from this. I've tried so many different courses of therapy, medication therapy, meditation, new hobbies, trying new things, trying to branch out my interests. It all just feels fake. It feels as if its just more distractions until my life comes to an end. I'm too caught up in the finer points that I forget about the big picture. Life is meant to be lived, experienced. What is it that I really want to fill my life with? My mood flip flops almost constantly and I'm left divided on what I want to do. Some of my interests stay the same, but I get these wild ideas and I run with them, desperately clinging to either the high of something new or the idea that this will bring me some kind of relief from the emotional devastation that fills me.

Depression is always going to be a part of my life. I've struggled with this for so long, my mental illness has become a part of my identity. I don't know what I would be without it or who I would be without it. It's so much a part of my identity that I literally have suicidal lyrics tattooed on me. I don't know how I reached that point where I said, "alright, the cuts all over me art enough, I need to to voice with words so that everyone can know that I'm suicidal, that it's not a joke and that maybe someone will fucking help me." It really didn't happen and now I've gotten to the point that I'm not sure that anyone ever will. 

In my next blog on mental health, I think I'll call it the "Let's Talk" series, I'll focus on self-mutilation and my decent into worsening self harm. There will be pictures, so if you are senstive to this sort of thing, you may not want to read that blog. Thanks.