The internet is a funny place. Its a useful tool for many things, but at the same time a source of pain for many. Sometimes causing more trouble than its worth it seems. For instance Blogs, and social media sites. We all know what we right instantly becomes public information, but since most of us know that, and some of us choose to open ourselves wide within it, do we really need people to come along and hold what we write against us? Do we really need the occasional accusation hurled in our direction? Its funny because most people read this small amount of detail about us, then they assume they have us all figured out, then they make accusations based on their sudden “infinite wisdom”. They don’t ask questions or try to learn more, they just read for a minute, then react based on those feelings, and those reactions tend to damage relationships.
For example, I Blog about my depression and my struggles with it. A lot of people Blog about this very same topic. Some people have it worse than I do, some have it better, but does that matter when we’re all fighting to survive? Let me try to explain my depression. I didn’t choose it, it chose me. If I had my way, I would just “snap out of it”. I fucking hate living with this and so does my family, but wishing for a magical snap is stupid and useless, and anybody who knows anything about depression knows its just not that simple.
I know I don’t have any problems. What I do have is a mind that wants to kill me. Daily. My mind spends all day, everyday, telling me I’m worthless, useless, pointless, in the way, a burden to everybody, a mistake, a loser, a failure, and a monster. To name but a few. Now, who in their right fucking mind would choose to live this way? If I could make it stop by snapping my fingers, I would have done so two years ago when it started. This has cost me a good job, almost wiped out my school, almost wiped out my marriage more than once, even almost cost me my life. Does this sound like an attention seeking stunt? Does it sound like the “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”?
For those of us living like this, the very last thing we need is people minimizing how we feel. We do that just fine all by ourselves on a daily, non stop basis. So thanks for trying to run me into the ground, but I already got this. My illness does a far better job at it anyway.
We don’t need help feeling like shit. It comes very quickly as soon as our eyes open in the morning, if we’re lucky enough to sleep. Me for example, I go to bed every night about 10pm and wake up between 2 and 4 am every night and then I Stay up. I wake up and stay up because I have such violent nightmares that I become afraid to go back to sleep. Does that sound like a choice? 4 hours of sleep followed by violent night terrors sound like fun or a choice to anybody reading this? There are plenty of other ways I’d like to be spending my nights, and my days for that matter.
I’m not crazy. I have an illness. And I work on it everyday. Some of that work involves medicine, some is just talking. Some of it stems from some ugly shit in the past that has already left its mark and now its time to clean up. I didn’t choose this, it chose me. And the false thinking out there that we can just snap out of it, or that its just a bad day, kills more people and causes more hurt than most people realize. People don’t do this for fun. Its pretty fucking far from fun, and it wants to kill most of us. Live to fight another day is what its all about. Some days just keep breathing.
Myself, my family, are fighting daily to try and pull me from this wreckage, the best and only way we know how. Just like so many others with the very same illness.