The Darkness of Depression

Depression is a hard thing.

I used to think that people who were depressed were just weak or were just manifesting a “fake” emotion.

I now know differently. I understand the real emotion differently.

This is me now. As I lay here in my bed at 1:45am not unable to sleep, just not wanting to. I lay here wanting to cry my eyes out but I don’t understand why.

I have an amazing wife, three beautiful kids and a lovely home. I have everything that would make any sane person rejoice. But I’m sad. It’s not a physical pain, but it hurts somewhere deep.

It’s an elusive feeling, I can’t catch it because I don’t understand it. I lay here tired but not wanting to sleep. I want to cry but don’t understand why. I want to smile but can’t. I want to shout and scream but with no motive. So I look for one. I upset and aggravate those around me, this helps me release the desire to shout and scream. I paint life as a darkness that is engulfing the being who I so desire to be. I just want to be happy. Not a superficial happiness but a real one. A sincere one.

At times I question why i feel like this and since I can’t pinpoint it I create a facade of someone who I’m not, but then I don’t actually what know I am.

I have described myself as a chameleon but that’s because I don’t know who I am. So I look deeper but still come up empty.

Depression manifests itself in my ways. One of those ways is aggression towards my loved ones.

Depression manifest itself in many ways. One of those ways is sorrow.

Depression manifests itself in many ways. One of those ways is lack of motivation.

Depression manifests itself in many ways. One of those ways is self pity.

Depression manifests itself in many ways. One of those ways is the inability to smile.

Depression manifests itself in many ways. One of those ways is the lack of self worth.

Depression manifests itself in many ways. One of those ways is to pretend that everything is ok and that I am someone that I’m not.

Depression manifests itself in many ways. One of those way is the constant desire to be loved although not feeling worthy of love.

The most difficult part of all this is that I believe all those things to be true but even that awareness just makes me see myself as even more stupid… because of course they are true.

If I was to be granted one wish, it wouldn’t be to be rich and good looking. It would be to be happy with who I am and with what I have. Depression takes that ability away from you.

I desperately chase the emotion of "being loved" from those around me, I just want to feel loved and that I matter to those I care about. I want to feel and know that I what I do for others blindly would also be done for me without hesitation, but then my passenger reminds me that why would anyone love me. Why would anyone want to actually, out of choice, love a crumpled up, damaged, broken individual. My passenger shows me that I am not different that an old dry, crumpled leaf on the pavement which in the best scenario would be stepped over, but in the worst will be stepped on and crushed even further.

Depression is real.

Depression is buried deep inside me. I can see it. I can feel it. I can almost touch it but alas it’s out of reach and I don’t know where it resides.

Even when I smile I can feel it gnawing away at my insides, doing everything in its power to remove positive thoughts and prevent me from being happy, whilst all the time reminding me how I "should stop being silly" because I'm simply not worth it. After all, no one could love me - like really love me.

The challenge now is to attempt to understand it and maybe by understanding it I will be able to identify its weaknesses and defeat it, because yes, depression is real and depression is a being that lives inside me.