why i can’t overcome depression
Trigger Warnings: depression, intrusive thoughts, self-harm
When I first started to get help* for depression, I had a grand misconception of what recovery was. I thought that getting help meant that somehow I’d be magically cured within a given time frame. That I’d be able to alter my brain to be “normal.”
Recovery is far from a smooth and easy process. In fact, during the first few months of therapy, I almost wished I didn’t want to get better. It felt like I was being torn apart. One part of me wanted to get better. Wanted to stop having intrusive thoughts. Wanted to live, not just to exist. The other part of me wanted to fall back into my self-destructive habits. Those habits were easier. They were quicker. They were familiar.
Being self-aware has its perks, but for a person who had been numb for so long, positive and negative emotions felt magnified by a thousand times. It became too much. I ended up self-harming for the first time in years. I was disgusted. Disgusted that it felt good. Disgusted that I had broken my promise to myself three years back that I wouldn’t self-harm again.
I think that’s when it clicked. No matter how many temporary, self-destructive habits I indulged in, they’d only be just that. Temporary. I wasn’t “fixing” anything. I was only pushing my problems away.
Progress, not perfection. It’s a phrase that pretty much anyone who has tried searching for self-help guides has seen, yet it took me fifteen years to fully understand what it meant. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever be completely “normal.” What even is “normal?”
I still have depression. I still have episodes where I can barely feel anything. I still have intrusive thoughts that tempt me whenever I’m overwhelmed. However, depression no longer consumes my life.
I coexist with my depression. I don’t feel like the word “recovery” fits my situation anymore. I feel like recovery implies that I can go back to the time before I was aware. Depression shaped the person I became. I gained new parts of me, such as an ability to empathize, but I lost my childhood.
I’m content with how far I’ve come. I’ve stopped wishing that I didn’t have depression in the first place. Depression was out of my control, but I was the only one who could improve my life. I won’t say that the pain made me stronger. It was the support and kindness that taught me strength.
*CBT Therapy
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