Faces of Depression

Depression is a slippery thing. It looks different for different people. It sometimes feels to me that it's treated as a much more uniform thing than it is.

This post would probably be better as a piece of carefully written poetry, but sadly I am no poet and I suspect it would just end up sounding like some angsty teenager who's read too many badly written teen romances. So this is just a description of how depression feels for me. For no reason other than the words seem to need to get out of my head.

Depression doesn't slowly build for me, it hits me like a ton of bricks. Still, it's not triggered by only one thing. Lots of things will slowly erode my defences, and then one carefully aimed kick will just break me. It doesn't happen very often, it takes a pretty unique set of circumstances to make it happen - a bit like an airline crash.

It feels like sadness, emptiness and worthlessness.

It's listening to a poem with the lines:

Am I enough?
Am I enough?
Am I enough?

and tearing up because I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is.

And with all the emotion comes weariness. All I want to do is sleep. Often all I can do is sleep. I have obligations that need to be met, so I go out into the world to take the kids where they need to go, to do the work, but I barely manage the requisite social interactions.

I'm invisible when I'm broken. I can't be helpful or useful, so I almost cease to exist. I can be having a conversation with someone and they just sort of drift away in the middle of it, like they forgot I was there. I guess that's probably because I don't feel like I'm there.

To get back out of it, I have to fix it. Sometimes that means working out exactly what the kick was, sometimes I know what it was, and I just need to Spakfilla over the damage. But finding the motivation to do the fixing is hard. If I want to be visible again, I need to be useful and helpful again. I need the Spakfilla to set and make me strong enough to absorb the next kick and not break. But it can be hard to convince myself the world actually wants me back anyway. It carries on perfectly well without me.

Whether the world wants me back or not, eventually the need for human connection will drive me to fix myself enough to be useful enough to maybe be worthy enough of the world. It's happened every time before, and it will happen again.

In lieu of poetry, here's some Garbage lyrics.

"Fix Me Now"

Things don't have to be this way
Catch me on a better day

Bury me above the clouds
All the way from here
Take away the things I need
Take away my fear

Hide me in a hollow sound
Happy evermore
Everything I had to give
Gave out long before

Fix me now I wish you would (Fix me now)
Bring me back to life (Fix me now)
Kiss me blind somebody should (Fix me now)
From hollow into light

Crashing silent broken down
Falling into night
Who gave up an who gave in
I'll go without a fight

Cut me down or cut me dead
Cut me in or out
Kiss me blind time after time
Take away my doubt

Fix me now I wish you would {Fix me now I wish you would} (Fix me now)
Bring me back to life (Fix me now)
Kiss me blind somebody should {Kiss me blind somebody should} (Fix me now)
From hollow into light

Things don't have to be this way
Catch me on a better day

Nowhere only down from here
Pick me off the floor
Take away the things I dream
One time one place one more

Fix me now I wish you would {Fix me now somebody should} (Fix me now)
Bring me back to life (Fix me now)
Kiss me blind somebody should {Fix me now somebody should} (Fix me now)
From hollow into

Fix me now I wish you would {Fix me now somebody should} (Fix me now)
Bring me back to life (Fix me now)
Kiss me blind somebody should {Fix me now somebody should} (Fix me now)
From hollow into light

Things don't have to be this way
Catch me on a better day
Things don't have to be this way
Catch me on a better day.