People don’t care.
They really don’t.
I spoke to a lady today and asked her if she heard the news.
Oh yeah. He committed suicide,
She said casually as she walked by.
No more discussion. Nothing.
And that’s what I’ve come to realize over time.
People simply don’t care about your troubles.
They don’t want to hear you complain. They don’t want to hear negativity. It makes them uncomfortable. They don’t know what to say or how to say it.
Maybe I’m talking to the wrong people. But oftentimes I’ve found that the people who are most empathetic often suffer because of it.
The opposite of connection is not isolation but rather complete indifference.
Having a cavalier attitude toward life or death.
Looking at statistics of hundreds of people dying and glossing over it as if it were simply a number, nothing more.
I know it’s impossible to care about every single thing out there. It’s impossible to always know the best thing to say in the right situation.
And what kills me is sometimes when I say insensitive things because my inner critic comes out and lashes out at people internally despite my better judgment.
Like my inner voice now has an utter disdain and condescending attitude towards the depressed version of myself.
And that’s not the I-had-a-bad-day-and-I’m-”depressed” depression. It’s the “I have lost the will to live and death seems to be the only solace from this suffering.”
That kind of depression.
And it doesn’t matter what you’ve been through. It doesn’t matter what you have materially. What matters is your frame of mind. Your behaviors. Your inner chemistry.
Depression is not something you can tame. Even those who suffer from it may hide their symptoms from the people around them, who are all too clueless to the very real pain that afflicts their being.
Like an ink blot dropped into water, it quickly spreads and permeates through every facet of your existence.
It’s as though the spectrum of color has been reduced to monochrome, as if the startling, vivid sensations of life have become dulled, deadened by the despair that often keeps you from being able to function.
But my worry now is that while remembering how I felt — helpless, afraid to reach out lest I burden someone else — I realize now that my own well intentioned advice would be useless.
At the same time, though, it took some “brutally honest” therapists and teachers to kick me out of depression. The advice they offered me was far more valuable than any noncommittal well intentioned reply could be.
Because they dissected my thoughts and actions. They challenged the voice inside my head that told me I was perpetually less than, never enough, a complete and utter failure, a miserable excuse for a human being.
I longed to share my sorrow, but I feared it would dampen the mood of those around me. That it would burden them unnecessarily.
So I suffered in silence and thought of suicide and death constantly.
But I realize that I had formed this narrative that disempowered and silenced me. It was this very self-enforced stigma that committed me to months of irregular eating and sleeping habits, away from friends and family.
And that experience taught me one thing:
People don’t care.
They don’t have the energy or time to.
But the ones who do —
The ones who bothered to reach out, who noticed your absence, who offered a listening ear and an open heart —
Those are the people who do care.
And through all this, you’ll realize that while you cannot choose much of what happens in life, you can choose your friends.
Treasure those who care to ask how you’re doing. How you’re really doing. Because my friends and family have been heroes in disguise, who’ve saved me from taking my life countless times.
Sometimes all it takes is a message and some empathy. A simple “I’m thinking of you” or genuine “I’m here to talk if you need me.”
That’s it.
