Depression is A Mentor — But Don’t let it take your life away

It probably doesn’t make sense to most people, maybe only the people who have experienced it will understand this but…
At the time of deep depression, at your worst moments, if one could end their life without anyone being hurt or effected in any way, they would end it without a second thought. Just like turning a game off, It feels selfish and fucked up and you judge yourself for being weak and a coward and simply not normal, but you don’t see the point of life; you don’t enjoy being here and are no longer motivated by happiness. You become aware of your outrage for own existence and the pain that comes with it, it all feels like a waste of time.

Post-depression things change, even now you may feel like that once every two weeks for about 1 hour or so… But remember you used to feel like that for 15 hours a day, every day! You are thinking about death 210 times less. Every two weeks you gain 209 hours of your life back which you would have previously lost to depression.
That thought alone can keep you going.

Looking back,
Depression will always be a tool, it will make you search for meaning and it will force you to be aware of how you feel making you more aware of when you are happy.

Depression helped you to realise how pointless your previous values were and allowed you to make your own values, better values. It showed you how fragile humans are and helped you to develop empathy which will go a long way in your future relationships. It broke you out of the trap of comparing yourself with others and the illusion that success is based on material wealth. You can now develop internal wealth because it showed you what is truly important. You understand that the mentality you were previously living with does not work! Life is an internal experience and we all leave this earth in the same way. All that is important today is that every day you are a little bit better then yesterday and not ranking your value based on someone else’s external world.

Depression forces you to change and find out new ideas. It can make you move house, move country, move friendship groups. It’s like a warning sign when something is wrong with your philosophy, something isn’t right in your mind, body and/or soul, so it simply pushes you in new directions.
In some ways you can love your depression, just like people love a hill to climb or a weight to lift at the gym. It gives you something to work against, pushes you away from places you didn’t want to be and are not good for you. No matter what feelings you have when you look back at your depression, it forced you to become who you are today. And for that, forgive it, full heartedly forgive your depression.

“The myth of Sisyphus “A figure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again. The essay concludes, “The struggle itself, is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy”.”