What constitutes depression?
Over several months, I lost everything.
It was a massive snowball downwards. Nothing made sense anymore. Time blurred by, it's already been 3 months and back to work. Grades dropped; I have no chance to make back into the top 10% of the class. Exercise dropped; it's cold, and it's too physically and mentally draining against my schoolwork. Motivation dropped; I just don't see a point. Reflection increased. Interactions with people dropped. Loneliness increased. Hundredfold.
What do you look forward to when you're depressed? What do you see in your future that makes you cling on to hope?
In short, nothing.
It was never a constant in my mind. I did not spend days and weeks brooding over my existence, staring at the void. I'm not like that. I love the disconnect.
My life is centered around the disconnect. That feeling of immersing yourself into your computer. Forgetting about all your worries, about all your concerns. Focusing simply on your digital self; guiding your character throughout a game, finishing up on coding projects, losing myself in a sea of videos. An easy way to spend days, months; an escape from reality.
When you leave the disconnect, suddenly, you're bombarded with all the crap you have been avoiding. The homework assignments you don't know how to do. The classes you're doing poorly in. The lack of friends you have. The breakdown of your social skills. The empty void in your life left by your ex. The belief that you might never find someone that you can interact with like you did with your ex.
That's how far the down-swings go. The up-swings? Nearly non-existent.
Sometimes, when I'm walking home at night, I will stare up at the sky, and forget about everything. There's something about the stars that just makes you feel small, that makes your problems feel small, and that melts away all your worries.
Or maybe you will look at the morning sky and it'll seem so peaceful that your mind eases up. You can finally smile a bit. You can hum a tune in your head and seem to bob along, because your worries disappeared. But that feeling disappears as fast as it came.
In fact, I think the real effect of depression is really how little good things actually affect you. Someone will be exceptionally nice to you for no reason and you feel good, but in an hour, it's like it never happened. You can exist in some ethereal happiness, but after a couple minutes, you forget why you were happy.
I'm not better yet. Not by a long shot. But I'll get there.
I have goals. I have dreams. And none of those involve lying down and simply dying. I have so many things to work for, that I just can't roll over. Not now, not ever.
Yet everything still seems futile. I am the result of the individual experiences that made up my existence. I am the result of everything I have learned, everything that I have done, and everything that I will do. I have unique, and I really value my uniqueness. I have tried so hard to accept my own uniqueness. I realize that really, I am who I am. I try my best with what hand I'm given, and everything I do has a reason and a purpose. But it never seems like it's enough.
I continually validate my existence and push myself harder, but nothing ever turns out the way I want it.
And even worse, that feeling of understanding, acceptance and satisfaction never lasts.
But I can do this. Really. I'm no longer scared of asking for help, because I have nothing to lose anymore. Being too shy to ask some people, and being unable to communicate well is a different story. I post a bit to forums I frequent, and they give me so much advice.
It really pains me not to be able to accept everyone's advice at once and simply move on, but everything worth fighting for takes time. And at this moment, I'm fighting for my life.
People say, it's just a phase. I say, it's going to be a phase. And I have to overcome all the hardships that this phase entails.
I'm already trying out so much to fix myself, and I'm afraid I'm going to fail. But when I do fail, you can bet I will pick myself back up again. If not in an hour, then in a day, or in a week.
This is not so much a blog as a personal declaration. I will make it through this. I will.