Notes on Depression and Anxiety

The Depression Part

It used to creep up on me, and I wouldn't notice until it was already too late.

Nowadays it hits me like a freaking bus.

I could be sitting at my desk studying, and in two seconds I think of a trigger and my heart is beating faster and I feel my insides getting cold and my chest tighten and my eyes fill with tears.

Sometimes it's like I'm grieving, even though nobody died.

When the episodes started growing constant, I would only snap if something actually happened. Someone said something mean or did something that hurt me, I felt overwhelmed by my workload or I read something about a sucky subject. I would grow more and more withdrawn, and at a point I'd start crying. That could last for hours.

Then I started noticing little changes, myself gradually getting worse. I remember when I first had an episode when seemingly nothing had caused it. The first time I didn't feel good while watching a tv show. The first time I actually woke up already feeling like shit.

The first time I seriously thought about death, the first time I questioned Heaven's existance, the first time I wondered if anyone would miss me if I died, the first time I hurt myself.

I've been through episodes that lasted minutes, hours and days. It's never the exact same feeling, so I never was sure that when and if I hit rock bottom, I would even notice. I'm not sure if it's already behind me, or even if it's yet to come.

I often feel so desperate about life in general that I seriously contemplate suicide. Of coure I have an opinion on the matter; how it would be selfish to leave everyone behind like that, to hopelessly shatter my family and friends, how suicide is a sin, and how there is always a reason to keep going, no matter what. But at my worst I just don't care about all that anymore. I don't even want to die exactly; all I want is just to feel good again. And at my worst times I can never see that feeling anywhere near the horizon.

And it's not like there's a magic word that makes an episode go away. If I get in that state of mind, it's near impossible to get out again, for at least half a day. Most likely even more.

Sometimes I see stuff that really make me want to cry. It can be my favorite stuffed animal, a picture of me when I was small and careless, something that's supposed to make me feel better, but doesn't. It's not something I can easily explain. I just see something seemingly random that reminds me of happy - and there goes my self composure. It's a horrible feeling.

The worst is when people don't understand what I'm going through. I try to explain, but they either think I'm being dramatic and trying to hog their attention,  or they just don't understand. The thing about my peers is that they're so closed off to other people's problems. If they haven't experienced something personally, they can't even begin to imagine it. Sometimes they get so judgy when talking about something they don't know the first thing about.

That's why I hate it so much when perfectly happy people start spouting on about suicide. I wish, if they have no idea what it's like to feel that nobody in the world cares about you and that there is nothing left for you to live for, that they would just shut up and learn about compassion.

Sometimes I feel selfish, but other times it's like everyone else is, and I'm the only one who cares. Sometimes I focus so much on other people's problems and how to solve them and how horrible they must be feeling, that only when their crisis is solved do I realize that I am still exactly where I was before, and they haven't thought to help me out at all. So then there I am, crying alone like an idiot. Yet again. And nobody cares.

To be fair, not all my friends and family members know I have a problem. Most have caught on by now that something isn't right with me, but not so much that they would venture to ask. And I wouldn't venture to tell, because I'm scared they'll just leave me.

Sometimes I feel so mixed up about who I am and what I want to achieve. I used to be shy and quiet, but I don't want to be like that anymore. I'm not even sure if that was my real personality at all, or if it was just forced on me by circumstance. I used to be such a hyper and bossy kid, a sort of born leader, and then everything changed when mom first went away and I was left at home to deal. But this is probably more about anxiety than depression.

They say you are not your mental health issues. Well, if that's true, then I don't know who I am at all. Almost since I can remember I was the sad, quiet kid who did her work properly and worried about every little thing, hopelessly hoping for something better to come along.

But after 6 years of that shit, the little kid finally had enough.

And now that I know what's wrong with me, I don't know what I'm actually like at all. Am I still that take-charge little girl, or have I morphed into my makeshift "shy" personality?

Who can tell?