Find Your Way

Why is letting go so hard?

Depression is a challenging thing to comprehend. Those who suffer from it have a tough time explaining it, while those who don’t, have a difficult time understanding it. Some believe it’s a real thing, while others deny its existence completely. I’ve personally struggled with depression; it has stolen many years from my life. Yet, I’ve always been at a loss for words when it came to describing my experience. In talking with others, I’ve found I’m not alone. This left me asking, “What is depression?” “Is it real?” and “Will it control my life forever?”

On the surface, depression is something that makes you feel unmotivated, unenergized and uninterested at times. Most people have felt like that at some point in their life. This is a glimpse into depression, and for some, it never progresses any further. These negative feelings appear one moment and are gone the next. For others, however, these feelings will stick around and grow into something much greater. They become a cloud of negativity that casts a shadow of darkness on every thought, every action and every moment of life, even the ones that are supposed to be happy.

In my experience, depression isn’t something that hits me all at once. Instead, it progresses slowly, from bad to worse. What once felt like intrusive thoughts popping into my mental space, soon becomes a flood of negativity making it difficult to decipher the positive thoughts from the negative. Each positive thought gets drowned out by a negative or self-doubting one. As a bad feeling sinks in the pit of my stomach, I can feel my ability to protect my mind start to slip away.

The constant battle to keep my mind from slipping away becomes exhausting. The longer the struggle continues, the less and less energy I have. This is when depression becomes overwhelming.

Simple things like getting out of bed, brushing my teeth and getting ready for work become a nuisance. I start to feel more irritable and become agitated even by the smallest things. I can tell people are noticing a difference in my temper and tone of voice. I feel fatigued and all I want to do is sleep, but no amount of sleep is enough to make me feel rested. At this point, it takes everything I have just to keep going through the motions. Everything seems dull and lifeless. I start to withdraw from activities I enjoy while isolating myself from friends and family to avoid burdening them with my “issues.”

As the undertow of negativity continues to flow, I feel it’s a matter of time before the waves pull me too deep. I want to ask for help but stop myself when I can’t come up with an answer for, “How can someone save me from the things that are going on in my own head?” This makes me feel alienated and frustrated. I can’t help but wonder, “ Why is this happening to me?” I blame the world for my circumstances. I even grow to resent the people around me for not understanding or being able to help. As a result, I neglect incoming phone calls and the, “Are you okay?” texts.

At times, I can stop myself here. Either through consistent support or sheer willpower, I’ve been able to regain control of my thoughts and pull myself together again. Other times, this is only the start of what is yet to come.

The next disappointment, big or small, is all it takes to tip the scale in depression’s favor — causing me to stop fighting and surrender to depression. As I’m pulled deeper and deeper, my life starts to flash before me eyes. Except, every good memory is overshadowed by vivid images of all the disappointments in my life. I find myself reliving every terrible moment, only to be re-embarrassed and heartbroken all over again. Depression tells me this is all my life has ever been.

My mind doesn’t even feel like mine anymore. My view of happiness is gone forever. Pain, suffering and anguish seem like my permanent destination. By this time, I’m not functioning at all — Confined to a room, lying down is all I can do. As depression continues to take over, my feelings of anger and frustration turn into an overall feeling of hopelessness. I begin to feel numb, like nothing matters, no one matters — not even me.

I become desperate for relief. Dying starts to feel like the only way to make it all stop. I start to fantasize about what it would be like to die. I imagine how good it would feel to leave the worries of this life behind. I repeatedly play out different scenarios of ways I could end my life. I tell myself this will not only relieve my own suffering but prove to the world how much pain I was in. I start to believe that my death will make a larger impact than my life has.

My concept of reality is completely distorted. I’m surrounded by emptiness and feel invisible to the world. Once this low, it feels impossible to escape. Tormented by my own thoughts and hopelessness, I have no sense of right from wrong or up from down. I’m completely lost. This is as dark and as lonely as depression gets. I know, because I’ve been here too many times to count. This is rock bottom.

While stuck in this vulnerable place, many get diagnosed with a mental illness, like I was. Others, fall victim to addiction and some don’t make it out at all. I almost didn’t. Either way, a part of you is never quite the same. The person who fell in, can’t be the same person who climbs out. It’s a daunting task to pull yourself out of this dark place with hopes of returning to a “normal” life, after spending what felt like an eternity trapped in your own head.

I have tried therapy, medication and even turned to religion as a way to keep depression at bay. As I would try my best to recover, depression always seemed to be lingering, waiting for its opportunity to capture me again. As I continued to move forward, I could hear the question ring in my head, “How long can I keep this up before I fall again?” Nothing seemed to work for long before I found myself back at square one. I always felt like I was taking one step forward and three steps back.

Then one day, it hit me..

On some unconscious level, I was using depression as a crutch. This realization startled me. Depression wasn’t just something I had been fighting off but something I was keeping around. I didn’t want to believe it at first, “Why would I keep something around that had caused me so much pain and sorrow?” But, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

It’s strange, but I realized I was turning to depression as a way to cope. Just as a person who suffers from alcoholism turns to drinking to numb themselves, I turned to depression — it was my alcohol. I spent a lot of time consumed by it, it put my health and safety at risk and made it difficult to function in daily life. I saw the damage that depression caused and I still resorted to it. Just as “reaching for the bottle” is always an option, so was falling into depression for me. I was a depressaholic.

Admitting this to myself was the first real step toward my recovery. When I started to view depression as a substance I was abusing, my perspective changed forever. It made me feel more in control and less like a victim. As I reviewed my life, I noticed a pattern. The times I fell into depression, were in moments that I couldn’t face the obstacle in front of me. Anytime life presented me with a challenge, I had two options: stand and face it or run and hide. Depression was my way of running.

I’ve learned that with new obstacles; such as a career change, a break-up or the loss of a loved one, came feelings of unfamiliarity. This lead me to feel uncertain and is where the dilemma would begin. I’d worry about how things were going to work out and whether I was capable of making it through the challenge. These things took me out of my comfort zone, making me feel anxious or even fearful. I could either work through it, allowing the unfamiliar to become familiar, or resort to something I was comfortable with.

Depression was comfortable — Despite the suffering it caused, something about it felt safe. Any time life would get overwhelming; I knew I could revert back to depression because it would always be the same. Like an old friend; I could rely on it to welcome me back with open arms. It was a place I could go whenever I wanted to hide from the world. Understanding this helped me to see depression for what it really was: A self-destructive habit that I was using to cope with life.

I still wrestle with it at times, but I have finally started to let go of depression for good. It hasn’t been easy and the road of recovery can be long. It’s taken a lot of self-awareness and accountability. I’m certainly not perfect; I’ve taken a lot of steps forward and a few steps back, but this is all part of the healing process. Even though I’m still on the path of recovery, I no longer believe depression will control my life forever.