On Finding Love from Inside the Depressed Mind

“There’s nothing left of me to love, I’m a shell of who I used to be.”

“Why would they want someone that’ll be dealing with this disease for the rest of their life?”

“How could they possibly love me, I can’t even stand myself.”

These are some of the thoughts that cycle through the depressed mind when faced with the possibility of a new relationship or entering the dating world. I know, because this loop is turned on repeat every time I sign back up for Bumble or start getting close to someone. I have to actively challenge these thoughts to avoid deleting the app in favor of running away and crawling into a hole, where I’ll remain single for the rest of my life.

We think about who we were before the depression hit, and about the empty, hollow person we are inside the depression and wonder if anyone could ever love someone whose sense of humor, creativity, laughter, hope for the future, motivation, has all been stolen. We wonder if those things are ever coming back, and if anyone would choose to stand around in the blackness with us long enough to find out.

We wonder why someone would want to be in a relationship with a person who regularly experiences walks through a darkness that take away their ability to care for themselves, to care about their responsibilities, to care about the future. Who would, by choice, endure those walks through the darkness with us, when they’re not only a frustrating interruption to life, but sometimes an alarming tread through suicidal tendencies? Who would choose this?

We ask ourselves how they could possibly love us, when we can’t stand ourselves. When we can’t stand that every thought in our head is a negative one, that we’re too exhausted to do anything fun or productive, that our thoughts are so flat we can hardly carry on a conversation, that we may cry all the time, and for no reason at all. We wonder who would want to be around us, who would choose such a thing.

Who would choose me?

But: there are people who will stay. There are people who will take your hand and find their way through the darkness with you, remembering and working back towards the moments of light, of laughter, of hope. There are people who will choose you for beautiful parts of you that you can no longer see through the lens of depression that distorts your view. There are people who will love you because you’ve walked through hell and chosen to continue fighting.

So we keep searching. Knowing they exist, knowing, despite what the depression tells us, that we are inherently deserving of love. Knowing that one day, someone will see us through the dark haze of depression and still choose to walk closer, to get to know the parts of us that intertwine with it.

Knowing that one day, someone is going to stay.