The Dull Ache of Depression

Age: 20-Something and In College
Underwater
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Woke up today and depression weaseled its way in. Ever lurking in the shadows. I don’t even know how it got here. I’m still feeling it. It’s a pulsating lackluster orb that stretches to fill in the spaces in me. Usually it hangs around the pit of my stomach. Right now it is much bigger than that. A dull ache. Zapping my energy. Numb and blank.

I won’t last in here, it’s worse than my extreme bouts of depression I used to go through. This is an emptiness that cannot sustain life.

Depression is no joke. It creeps near and then fills me up…or empties me. Depends on the phase. I’m numb and then I’m crying and I’m grasping for an explanation but I cannot find one. My loneliness doesn’t even seem fair. I’m sitting in a beautiful library, surrounded by life, academia, success. Not poverty, death and illness. I shouldn’t feel this way, so why can’t I stop feeling this way?

Is it the time of year?  Is it the way the leaves have all fallen to the ground?  The wind is not so cold yet, but I am so fearful of the upcoming winter that I bundle up in my green scarf, my green sweater and my green jacket, topping it off with my green hat and green gloves. Wrapping myself in colors of spring. I used to take naps outside on the grass in the warm sunshine. Now when wind whips, my hair gets caught in my mouth as I gasp for oxygen, which there seems to be less of now. The sunny days are duller than they used to be.

I used to find things funny just by watching them. Now I don’t. I just watch shows that I know would have made me happy and laugh before and sit there with no emotion. I’m not just sadder than I used to be, I’m less everything. I’m less happy, I cry less, I feel less. I express less. I find a way to make it through every moment, I’m not incredibly sad all the time. I don’t feel much of anything most of the time.

Nothing is ever picture perfect. Pictures are stolen moments, turned into lies, memories that never existed back then as they do now.

My life is a series of staged pictures. I live in a fantasy world. I try to be whoever anyone wants me to be. But I have no desire to be around anyone, I don’t want to even eat lunch with friends. I’m not friendly and I am always tired, sometimes unable to sleep but exhausted and other times all I can do is sleep. No one really knows me. I put on these airs, I don’t mean to do it but when I’m around different people my attitude snaps into a different position and my body language changes. I guess I change myself because I don’t know who I am. Sometimes, I lie compulsively about stupid shit, I don’t even mean to, the lies just jump out. The façade is taking over and I don’t know the boundary between the real me and the picture of me.

I know I will not feel like this later. In fact, I will probably try to retract all these statements because there are certain things I don’t like to remember.

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1 Comment

  1. Alice Lynn on May 19, 2016 at 12:16 pm

    I guess I never fully realized the suffering that is depression. I’ve read about it; I’ve studied it in school; I’ve even experienced periods of despair and sadness but never to the extent you describe. I think anyone suffering from full blown depression will find a thread of comfort (I’m not alone) and hope, (I’m in a good place after treatment). So glad you’re back in the Technicolor world of life.

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