Who Am I Without Depression?
Finding an identity outside of your diagnosis
Sometimes depression feels easier to write about than anything else. You can use dark, poetic language when you’re peering into the depths of your own soul. Did you catch what I did there?
What am I supposed to do now? Write about feeling very cautiously optimistic? The words don’t flow the same from a contented heart.
I’ve been cognizant over the years not to make mental illness my identity, but when I’m in the thick of it, it overtakes me. It possesses me, so that it’s me and I’m it. There is no separating the two.
But that’s because I cling to it — even if I don’t know I do. I hold on to the security blanket that is my sadness. The reminder of who I am. Without it, what would I be?
The words sound harsh when you first hear them. You want to argue that no part of you wants to be depressed, but inevitably, when you’ve spent enough time there, you start to identify with it.
The feeling of being nothing can lead to the subconscious thought that without depression, you’d face annihilation. You’d be left with no identity. You wouldn’t exist.
So finding value in yourself becomes doubly important when you’re someone who deals with depression. Depression knocks your…
