Living with depression is never easy, and it can be very isolating. It has destroyed my relationships with a lot of people, and created a wide gulf between my family and me.
Normally I’m okay with my little self-created hermit world. It’s a comfortable little cave.
But when the depression gets worse, sometimes I start to feel very, very alone.
This was the case recently. One of my pets passed away right around the same time as I had a major conflict with my only real in-person support figure. I wasn’t particularly well to begin with, and the stress hit me very hard. I became so slowed down that movement became very difficult.
I do most of my writing on my blog on Wordpress, and I did a post on how I wished that electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) was a logistically feasible option, as it would be the most effective treatment for the way that my depression is presenting right now.
The outpouring of support was truly remarkable. People were asking if they lived close enough to me that they could help take care of me or my pet guinea pigs.
People I’d never met were offering to be my ride home and remainder-of-the-day babysitter, essentially, so that I could get outpatient ECT treatments.
Some of these people were very new readers of my blog. They barely know me online and don’t know me at all in person, but they still wanted to help.
Digital connections may seem more tenuous than “in real life” connections, but the kindness of the human spirit is universal.
And that means that no matter how isolated I might feel, as long as I have an internet connection, I will never be alone.
