When All That Glitters Is Not Gold...

A short description about how depression affects the mind.

I think I always knew that I was a little different than everyone else. Knew that I had something deeper, something darker inside of me. I think the biggest problem was that I was always trying to hide it, trying just to feel normal. However, trying to bury it inside of me just made it even more angry, I could feel it trying to escape. It's rage, my tears. It's screams, my cries. It was my omnipresent adversary, my most demonstrative demon. It seemed as though it had become so much a part of me, as if it had been sewn to my very soul. It's only goal to attain freedom, though its only escape of course was my own self destruction. That is why I found myself in the river, testing my strengths, right before the falls. I found myself not only fighting life's natural currents but also my demon as it pushed me closer and closer to the edge. 

  

I am speaking of course about my lifelong struggle with depression. I say lifelong of course because I am speaking to you now from the great beyond. In the end, my demon won because in the end the demons always win. 

 

It's funny how people always say that your life will "flash before your eyes" before you die, when that really isn't what happens at all. The air just becomes heavy, and all of the sudden it's hard to breathe. Similar to the feeling you experience right before you drown. Not the part where you are underwater panicking as you try to claw your way to the surface, it's that feeling right after the panic subsides. You know, when you finally can't hold your breath anymore and your brain is repeatedly telling you to breathe so you finally give up and inhale. Your lungs fill with water, finally the pounding in your head subsides and there you are barely alive, no longer fighting it. It's that feeling right there, right before the unconsciousness. 

 

It's a funny way to describe death, but it's an even funnier way of describing depression. I say "funny" in a figurative way of course. Because truly there is nothing actually "funny" about depression. But for those of you that don't understand, that's what depression feels like. Being underwater and giving up a little bit everyday, dying just a little bit more every day. 

 

William Styron once described depression as a "poisonous fog bank that rolls in every afternoon around 3 o'clock." But in all reality, that description could not be further than the truth. Depression has no time, no limit. It is a continuous sickness, that when given the chance manifests into something more. It takes advantage of our insecurities, our weaknesses, and eventually takes over that corner of the mind that triggers self-preservation. Depression doesn't happen at 3 in the afternoon, it happens when you wake up in the morning, it happens when you smile and say "good morning" to your coworkers or classmates, it happens when you go home at night. It is the inability to see a future, to find any rhyme or reason to life. And it is impossible to fight when it only feeds off of your hopes and dreams or any other simple happiness you may find in life. Simply put, depression is an animal, possibly the most deadly animal any human could ever encounter.  

 

The only escape I ever found from myself was in my sleep. My brain too exhausted to dream, too depressed to imagine. My sleep was literally the only time that I was no longer in psychological pain. So I slept, I slept a lot. A lot is an understatement though. My life was similar to that of an old fat cat. I worked, I ate, or I didn't eat at all (according to whichever bender I was on that week), and I slept. Sometimes 10 to 12 hours a night. At first it was easy to sleep, my body and my brain were exhausted from the constant ebb and flow. Eventually though it became more difficult to sleep. It was as though my depression was on to me. As if it wanted to ruin the only escape I could ever count on. That's when the drugs started. A Benadryl here, a NyQuil there, occasionally something stronger when needed. Anything that would do the trick seemed necessary at some points. 

 

Sylvia Plath on the other hand, depicted depression perfectly in her book called "The Bell Jar".  I too feel that wherever it is I go I am just surrounded by my own sour air, encompassed by my bell jar, separated from the world so as not to infect them with my disease. And it is a disease, a cancerous one. You don't simply wake up one morning and say "I'm not going to be depressed anymore" and then go on with your daily tasks. You can't go on. But you can't connect with others efficiently anymore either. You are closed off in a way, separated from the rest of the world. Underneath the "bell jar" slowly suffocating in your own silences. 

 

In a way, that silence becomes your own personal hell. You know, the worst part of hell too, the seventh circle of it. The place that they reserve for murders, rapists, lawyers and of course hitler. That is what your life becomes, yet you suffer in silence. In your mind you become some kind of renowned martyr, saving others from the inconsequential details of your pain. William Styron couldn't have said it better when he claimed that your "brain becomes less an organ of thought than an instrument, measuring the varying degrees of its own suffering."  Your whole body becomes an instrument. You are no longer able to dream, or hope. Only to pray that you will be delivered some sanctuary or wisdom from this trial. Some deeper meaning, something that makes it seem as though the suffering has been a great lesson, and has served in some kind of great transformation. As Elizabeth Wurtzel once said, "That is all I want from life: for all of this pain to seem purposeful." 

 

It's as if I go from confused to Confucius, as I constantly yearn to find some meaning in this life.