Confessions of a formerly depressed person

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m still on antidepressants.

I say ‘formerly depressed’, because it’s been a good four months since my last suicide attempt, which had landed me in hospital just days before my 22nd birthday.

Do I still think about killing myself? Every now and then, it flits across my mind. I have days when I wake up crying because I’ve had a nightmare about the person I love(d), memories that cut too deep; I have evenings when I crash at home after work, too paralysed with emotions to summon the strength to go anywhere; I have the random bouts of crying, tears that originated from a dark place in my head I still get lost in, a place I myself have built but do not fully understand.

I say ‘formerly depressed’, because it’s also been four months since I’ve let these feelings override me and eclipse everything else that is important to me. I say ‘formerly depressed’, because in these four months I have only missed a single day of work because of depression. I say formerly depressed, because I am, once again, trying to do this thing called ‘life’, this thing that I have completely given up on in the eight months since the depression label has been slapped onto me by creepy bespectacled white-cloaked people in hospitals.

Andrew Soloman said, in a fantastic TED talk, that “The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality and my life, as I write this, is vital even when sad.” I say ‘formerly depressed’, because there are many days when I am sad, but even on these days, I am living.

Really, I think I deserve a pat on the back, and possibly even some applause. No?

Unfortunately ‘life’ isn’t a video game, and you don’t get adult points for dragging your heavy self downstairs to do the laundry, or summoning up the courage to go to social gatherings, or climbing out of bed to run yourself under the shower, or showing up for work after a very tearful morning. To everyone else, these are just ordinary things. These things are expected of you, expected of everyone in the society; you are doing something that comes as naturally to them as breathing, even if it’s not so for you. So, unfortunately, you don’t get extra credit, you’re just doing the assignment.

If alcohol, like Fitzgerald says, make one look at life through rose coloured glasses, depression, especially depression on medication, is a big folding screen between you and the world, so that all the feelings you know you are supposed to be feeling are only almost there but not quite fully so, so that there’s a short circuit between an enjoyable act and actual joy. Only recently am I starting to regain the ability to smile at the small things in life again, like taking a leisurely stroll along the harbour with my friends on a sunny weekend day, indulging in good hour-long conversations over smokes and drinks on a balcony, allowing the exhilerating feeling of finishing a book sink into every cell in my body, and letting great music wash over me at a gig. So, are my demons gone?

I’d like to think that I had battled my demons bravely, faced them full-on, and fought them off, but in actual fact I had been running away from them. It was almost as if I pretended that the person I loved was dead, cutting off all roads of communication, shielding myself from every scrap of information related to him, because it was easier to deal with the grief. I forsook writing poetry, something that I used to love, because it was we used to write together. I took longer, roundabout routes to avoid visiting the places we had gone to. I hesitated at the idea of hopping onto a plane and taking a trip somewhere, which I used to do all the time, because I worried about what might happen when I don’t have my support group with me, when they’re not just a phone call away. I shied away from every potential trigger, carefully constructed a safety net around myself, and bolted at the first sign of anything that could stir up emotions in me. By choosing to not be depressed anymore, I also chose not to feel.

There are weeks which are really nice, when I have consecutive good days that fly by, when I almost forget that I was ever depressed or how I could ever get into that state. But I still say ‘formerly depressed’, because only almost; one small trigger, one negative thought, one setback, and I’m back at it again, crouched in a fetal position on the kitchen floor, holding my head sobbing. And then, ironically, it’s the other way round; I almost forget that I were ever happy.

I still say ‘formerly depressed’, because I don’t trust myself with decisions anymore; not with obviously big life choices like a change or career, but not even with minor things like whether to reconnect with someone you have not seen in a while, or whether I should listen to a song that will remind me of what used to be. I say ‘formerly depressed’, because I don’t seem to be able to do anything without first thinking, but lemme talk to my counsellor.

There are days when I feel oddly confident, days that make me want to confront the nightmares, to tie up the loose ends, to take control again. Because that’s what depression ultimately is — it’s the complete loss of control over your emotions. But these days are often quickly followed by an impending sense of doom, memories that reminded me of the state I was in, and the dangers of setting foot in that chaotic world. Then my confidence falters and I find myself running away again.

They say that the best cure for PTSD patients is not a complete blockage of traumatic triggers, but controlled exposure to them. And maybe some of these things will lead to a temporary relapse, but I honestly rather mentally prepare myself for weeping my eyes out when that happens, then constantly live in a fear of unknown, having to tread carefully around the eggshells of life. And how scary can it be? When you’ve ever reached a point that you’re ready to kill yourself, things really can only go better from there. And the knowledge that you have the experience of climbing out of the bottom of a well gives you a strange courage — this version of me, I like to think, is a little more indestructible now.

I’ve started living again, but now I think it’s time for the next step, and God, if you exist somewhere, I hope it’s not too much to ask that I want to be happy as well. I don’t want to be ‘formerly depressed’ anymore; I just want to be me.