Content Warning: Depression
The day I didn’t want to write wasn’t so long ago.
That’s never a great start to a story, right? Especially one about a writer.
Maybe not, but it’s the honest truth. I had been slowly spiraling down into the deepest depression I have ever experienced and that’s what depression does.
Depression isn’t just feeling down in the dumps and oh well time to smile and be happy again because everything will be all right. There is a thing called functioning depression, and that, well that has it’s own miseries to it.
But if you reach the point of not wanting to do the things you know you used to enjoy, when you no longer can enjoy them even when you try, that, my friend, is a deep problem.
The thing is, it’s an easily hidden problem. It’s easy to overlook. Others may have no idea. You might not even realize what’s going on.
I’m fortunate because I was watching closely. From one crisis to another, from one unsafe or careless or inconsiderate choice after another by others, I realized I was slipping away. I didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Even as much as I still cared for the world at large, and even as much as I didn’t want the rest of my life, however long it would be, to be miserable, I felt that ultimately none of it made a difference or was worth anything.
I’d been practicing all sorts of self care methods, trying to be kind to myself, trying to make my expectations realistic and reasonable. I’d been seen, heard, understood by a few. I’d been misunderstood or perhaps even considered a nuisance by others.
I was living through trauma. We all were. And I had an extra complication on top of mine that some simply could not compute. They couldn’t see the world the way I did. I’m sure to them I was full of overreactions.
I’m not here to argue my trauma is worse than someone else’s.
I just know what mine did to me.
The day I no longer wanted to write, that thing, that singular thing I’ve been good at and enjoyed for years, the very thing I studied and realized I had found my treasure chest, something I could do for ever and enjoy the time-consuming, painstaking process. The day I no longer wanted to write was a day that part of me died and sat decomposing in my chest. And I just wanted it gone. I didn’t even want to mourn it. Because it didn’t matter.
So I stopped. In a way it was a kindness. I removed the pressure. The joy was gone; the guilt could die with it. The aspirations of publication, the wish to say something worth saying on a mass scale, and the desire to prove to myself I could do something even with the odds stacked against me, those were all gone.
Years of work and dreams no longer mattered.
It was a slow chiseling away, but not one that led to a beautiful statue or anything noteworthily good. And when that last piece finally broke off, I didn’t want to search for it.
That’s what depression did to me.
I wasn’t me anymore. I was a new being, but a shell of one. It wasn’t a rebirth; it was just a walking death.
Writing wasn’t the only thing that didn’t matter anymore. Nothing I did or could do or would do mattered.
That was a dark time, and one most people who know me didn’t know about. I’m grateful for the support from those who did. I’m grateful the intensity of that time has dwindled. I’ll tell you about the good things sometime, but for now, this is a story with an uncomfortable pause. Depression does that. Let’s talk about it. Let’s not always counter it with “happy happy joy joy.” That won’t help the people who are in their darkest moments. Listening and accepting them, exactly as they are in that moment will do more than you may imagine.
Those difficult emotions are there for a reason. And when apathy sets in, that’s a warning sign.
Listen to those emotions. Watch for that warning sign. If someone you know is going through this (likely, even if you don’t realize it), sit with that discomfort. Not to live in it forever, but to understand, to learn, to be curious.
That’s how you find the way out.
DeTickles Diaries 