So, You’ve Been Depressed Since Childhood
Depression is something you only seem to think passively about. It’s not something you sit down one night and think, ‘There’s a real issue with the number of adults in this world who have no idea what they’re feeling isn’t normal, and that they’re deserving of the help we only really see reflected in the media around us.’ When you hear a friend tell you they’ve started taking antidepressants, you think it’s a shame things have come to that. You let yourself believe there’s one broad definition of depression, and that it’s far too complicated for anyone under the age of 25 to go through.
You remove yourself from the painful reality of it. Especially if you’re someone who identifies far too closely for comfort.
But truth be told, no two people seem to suffer the same way. You’re someone whose brain isn’t feeling too hot at the moment, and hasn’t been for a few weeks at least; persistent symptoms are what describe a case of depression, to make sure you’re not just having a bad week. But that’s one of the only things you have in common with your friend who’s a regular party animal and loving their time at Uni, despite coming back to you every now and then to let you know all about how much they’re struggling. And you sit there and listen, and morbidly wonder what it’d be like to be a depressive socialite, and you go on to compare your two lives for the next 12 hours at least.
When you start to realise you’re depressed, those differences start to matter a lot, when they were just something you rolled with before. You can find some kind of kindred spirit in the depression diagnosis list you’re reading through off of WebMD, or you can search through all the symptoms list in the world and still feel incredibly alone with what you’re feeling. The differences are even in the small things: some people have no trouble brushing their teeth, but you haven’t seen your toothbrush with your own two eyes in at least three days.
But when you’ve been in a cycle like that since your childhood, everyone else lives a shinier life with a case of depression you’ve never quite seen before. You’ve been practically consumed by what you’ve felt for the last 10 to 12 years, and you’re just managing to tread the water on that neurochemical surface.
So you start to write. You learn to write everything down, and not only because of your really poor memory, but because you found it just too hard or awkward to talk to people as a depressed kid. Now, you’re just an exhausted adult who can’t seem to write anything.
That’s why I thought I’d turn my attention here for a while: I’m sure I’m not the only one in the same boat.
There you are, trying to write your way through it, trying to find some kind of answer. But you just can’t, and you end up becoming your own worst enemy — and the worst thing is, you know it! You start to annoy yourself with it, don’t you?
Depression becomes your normality. It becomes far, far too normal to stop caring about a crying friend in front of you, to let out a little sigh on the inside. You then feel even worse because of your own reactive failings.
Either that or you lose all sense of the little energy you have when you finally get something that’s bothering you off of your chest. You weren’t raised to go the distance with your own emotions, after all, and now your brain is stuck in its ways of tuning them out.
That means, when the time comes to actually try and flex your emotional muscles, you’re as weak as a newborn kitten. The brain is a muscle after all, and its neural networks strengthen the more and more you use them. So if you were a kid who couldn’t work out how to deal with your emotions, and the stress of life around you made sure you never had the chance to, you’re not ready to stand up and deadlift as an adult. And the worst thing is, that’s exactly what the world around you expects you to do.
And yet, you’re still functional, because you’ve always had to be. You can still get out of bed in the morning, eventually. You can hold down a job when you need to, that’s one of the most surprising things of all. You’ve even mastered the art of showering at least twice a week, something anyone new to depression would never think possible. But that’s part of the problem too, isn’t it?
When you function, you’re not bad enough. And that’s how we manage to fail everyone who’s not been themselves since the time they were working out who they were. When you’re a child, your personality is developing. But when the added layer of depression is smothered on top of you, like the disgusting peachy jam in the middle of the cake, it just makes all the fluff you roll in whilst you grow stick like glue. And in the end, you don’t quite feel like the refined and proper grown-up you’re meant to be.
