My Handicap

“You’re always complaining.”

That is something I have heard many times. Many times when I express myself, people comment that I’m whining. I have often been told to stop being so bitter as well.

These aren’t just casual observations, though. They are words filled with hurt. Though unintentional, these comments for me are no different than calling someone in a wheelchair “slow” because I, too, have a handicap.

That handicap is depression.

I was officially diagnosed with depression twenty years ago when I was in my late teens, but I know that I suffered from it long before then.

I truly can’t remember a time in my life where I didn’t feel that looming sense of unhappiness and lack of self esteem. Even during days that I consider my happiest and the times when I felt surges of confidence, depression was there to put a cap on it. My mental illness prevented me from simply enjoying the moment and still does so to this day.

I consider myself a “functioning depressive” thanks to weekly therapy, medication I take, and changes I have made in my life. But these are all just aids, like glasses to someone with poor vision. There is no cure for depression. I will always have it. Always.

So, I am here to ask you to think twice next time you hear me complaining about something. Please take a moment before you react to some rant I go on where I make a life or death mountain out of a molehill that others would easily brush off.

I don’t want to sweat the small stuff. I want to appreciate all that I have worked for and has been given to me, I want to be happy, I truly do.

I just can’t