Hi,

It's been a while, I suck, I know. 

I've had a tough time dealing with my depression the past few weeks. This was the longest spell I've gone without having a depressive episode, which meant that when the bad day hit, it hit hard. I had lulled myself into a false sense of security, it had been months since I'd had a really bad day, I was cured! It was a Christmas miracle. At least, I thought it was, until one day I woke up and felt the familiar painful ache in my bones, the weight in my stomach and the unending dread. There isn't really an easy way to describe the feeling of this kind of bad day. It's like waking up underwater and constantly having to tread water to keep your head above the level. It's exhausting, and there's a part of your brain that can't help wondering 'what if I just stopped?'. Being sad isn't the worst part about depression, it's the thoughts that sneak their way across your mind like lightening, without permission, that tease and taunt you. It's the single, pervasive thought of 'what if it all just stopped?'. That thought, out of all the bad thoughts I've ever had about myself, is the most frightening, because it's the most tempting. 

Kristian Nygård

When I have a bad day, I constantly ask myself; 'why are you sad?', and I'm really asking myself; 'what the hell is wrong with you?'. And it's this question that bothers me most. I don't know why I'm sad. Nothing terrible has happened to me recently. I'm healthier than ever, I can look in the mirror without wanting to cry most days, and I have wonderful friends and family, so what's with the never-ending urge to cry for 64 years? The answer is, there is no answer. There is no reason for my sadness, there is just sadness, and this is one of the shittiest parts of depression. When you're sad for a reason, you can indulge your grief, you can sit in your room and cry and let it all out and move forward. When there's no reason, you can sit and cry, but then all you're left with after is confusion. Why am I crying? Why can I not stop? That confusion in my case, more often than not, leads to anger, because I can't stand feeling that out of control with my emotions. Then after the anger comes the guilt, what right do I even have to be sad when there are people out there suffering so much more? These emotions play with your head, you feel like you have to hide them, because how would you even explain that to people when you can't even explain it to yourself?

Elysian-Dreams

Often depression is simplified to just being really fucking sad, but it's so much more than that, it's so much more overwhelming. There's the loneliness, the isolation, the fear, the confusion, the unending exhaustion, the fact that you don't even know how to function as a human being anymore, the utter emptiness, the not caring about the things you used to love, the just not caring in general. When you simplify depression to sadness, to take away all the other factors that change you from the person you used to be, into the shell that you become. 

Depression Comix

There is something incredibly narcissistic about depression, all you can think about is yourself and your feelings, and the worst thing is, when it comes to actually talking about those feelings, the words fail. You end up isolated in this bubble of horrible thoughts, and fears that eat you alive, but on the outside you carry on as though you don't feel like you're dying. It's a lonely experience. It feels like you're talking to people through a glass wall and you can't find a way through it. You want to get involved, you want to laugh and have fun, but all you can hear is the voice in your head saying they don't want you around. And it's so much easier to give into that voice, because fighting it is exhausting. So you stumble around the glass wall, lost in a state of confusion and disorientation, but looking like a 'normal' human being and hiding the storm that is killing you inside.
I'm, generally speaking, an incredibly sensitive person, I don't know if it's the depression, or me just being a delicate flower, but I take everything to heart. This becomes so much worse when I'm having a bad day. The worry that somebody doesn't like me anymore is one of my most pervasive fears. I wish I was one of those people who didn't care what people thought. I have wished that more than anything for as long as I can remember. I've always wanted to be that badass who stands up for themselves and tells everyone else to go fuck themselves, but the most I can muster up is an arched brow and a quick scuttle away from confrontation. Even when people hurt my feelings, or make me feel shit, I'll go out of my way to avoid confronting the problem because I'm too scared of them not liking me. It's pathetic, but it's just the way my mind works. If people don't invite me out, I'll automatically assume they don't like me anymore and I won't know how to act around them because I won't know what I've done wrong. Hell, if I'm not even included in a tagged post I'll assume that we aren't pals anymore. It's an incredibly exhausting train of thought that leaves you scared of everyone and makes me an emotional nightmare to deal with. I don't know how my friends and family have put up with it for so long. 

Sylvie Reuter

Sometimes I'll have these brief, glorious moments on the bad days where it feels like the clouds of parted, and I can smile without feeling like my face is tearing itself apart, but then the next second, that little insidious voice is back. With feelings as mercurial as that, it's very hard to grasp how you feel at any point of the day. When people say 'just tell someone', it's so much harder than that; how can you articulate something that you don't fully understand, how can I tell someone how I feel, when I'm not entirely sure how I feel? The anxiety makes it even harder, because as understanding as society is now, it's very hard for people to fully sympathise with someone who doesn't like answering the phone, going new places, or even talking to new people. It's incredibly frustrating being too scared to do the simplest things that are easy to everyone else, imagine having to talk to somebody about something that terrifies you. 

I don't know if I really have a concise point to this ramble, I think I just find it easier to type out my feelings than chat about them. I can find more words when I'm typing than when I speak, when I speak it feels like the words get lost on their way to my mouth and nothing I say makes sense. This, I guess, is my way of trying to make sense of my thoughts and my broken brain. I don't know why I'm sad, I wish I did, because at least then I could do something about it. I don't know why I feel so alone, or lost, or confused. I don't know why I feel like everyone hates me. I don't know why I'm so confused, disorientated or scared 75% of the time. I just don't know. If I knew, I wouldn't be spewing my thoughts all over the internet, I would be out having a life, I would be living the dream.   

Shannon Sophia

I'll leave it there, I hope you're all having a better day than I am. If you want to chat, you can leave a comment below, or find me on any of my social media links on the side. Thanks for reading my ramble, if you made it all the way down here.

EDIT: Alright, I feel like I ended this on a really negative note, so I'll just add; I won't give up, I'll never give up and I live in perpetual hope that tomorrow will be a better day than today. I am the eternal dreamer haha.