Sometimes

Sometimes there is no choice.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter whether you work harder at making things better… it doesn’t change the feelings.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter that you put on a happy face and pretend to be happy because you hope that you will become happy.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how hard you try to pull yourself up and out of that low place, because the more you grasp at things to pull you up, the more things pile down on top of you.

Sometimes depression is just depression. It’s an overwhelming and painful pressure that never lifts, that completely drains you and becomes a part of you.

Sometimes you fight it with everything in you and yet it doesn’t let you out of its grasp.

Sometimes you just want it all to go away.

I’ve been having a tough time lately. I felt it coming at me and I did everything right. I adjusted my routine, kept up my meds, and kept my meetings with my counselors. I spoke about my mood with my husband and blogged about the edges of my depression; I was determined to stay ahead of it, to keep it away.

But sometimes it isn’t as simple as being determined. Sometimes no matter what you do, depression can creep up and slowly take over your life… it makes you want to give up.

Here’s where it gets hard. Because when you feel completely alone, lost in the world that keeps on going around you while you are stuck in this place, you want to open up. You want people to understand and to be able to help you. But it isn’t that simple. Because as much as you want people near, you also want to push them away. As much as you want to get better, to be happier, to be stable – the amount of effort it takes to simply get up in the morning sucks any effort out of you.

Sometimes it just takes too much.

Sometimes you don’t know where to turn to. You might pick up the phone, that friend who said to call her anytime – but you’re so tired and you just want to give up, you don’t want to be that nuisance. And what would you say anyways, ‘Hey, you said to call and I did because I feel so terrible that I want to die.’ It isn’t that simple. It is that terrifying. And so the feelings get pressed down – especially the darkest ones, the ones that we know we need help dealing with but are so frightening to us because we know, those are the thoughts that will get us locked away and looked at with pity. And they keep getting pushed further and further within us, dragging our mood down even lower because we are stuck and we don’t know what to do anymore.

Sometimes we need to talk about these things.

I need to talk about these things. It’s because I’ve felt them, been feeling them. No, I’m not suicidal at the moment, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t had dark thoughts. It doesn’t mean that I haven’t been struggling in a place that is invisible to the outside world. The battle is real. And I’m fighting it. I’m struggling through it day by day, and hour by hour. And I’m making it. But so many people aren’t. I’ve been there. And that’s why I’m talking about it. That’s why I’m sharing the daily struggle here. I want people to see what can’t be seen, to know that even though I may look okay on the outside, there is a war waging on my mental state. That it isn’t simply about trying more or working harder. Depression is a very real illness. And while I fight to get better, I want to give it a voice.

Sometimes we need to talk about it.