"Just ignore all these present tense"— It's Beginning to Get to Me, Snow Patrol

"Some people don't know what depression is like. Others do. I know some of both, but for some reason many are unable or unwilling to accept that having depression is not the same as being depressed. They are very different things: you are depressed when your boyfriend breaks up with you three days before Valentine's; you have depression when you spend days, months or even years at a time feeling like a waste of space. I am not embellishing anything. I'm not exaggerating to get the point across or emphasizing any one particular idea or stereotype. Okay?

When you have depression, it's not like being bipolar or moody, okay? It's not just being sad all the time. When you're sad, you are sad. When you are depressed, you are at the bottom of a ten-foot hole with no ladder, no rope, no helpers, and not enough [self-]control to stop digging. You can't stop digging. You can't. Every time you try the ground caves in just a bit more, so you get even deeper, farther, without ever having lifted a finger. You fall down into what amounts to an emotional pit of molasses. You can't really move all that well because you can't gather enough energy to try. You can't see your way out because some of it got in your eyes. You can't really call for help because you're choking—on everything; loneliness, pain, failed hopes, fallen dreams, and an unyielding, God-like fury that this, whatever 'this' is, is happening to you. You want to scream, "why do you keep doing this to me" at the top of your lungs, shout out to the heavens, "leave me alone" and whisper in the darkness where only you can hear, "help me, someone please help me".

But you can't. You can't, because there is an overriding knowledge that you are not worth it. You are useless. You are a genuine, certified, waste... of... space... so why would anyone help you? You don't even have the right to ask. Your advice and opinions are useless, your questions a waste of time, your shoulder unworthy of anyone's tears, and your tears unworthy of anyone's shoulder.

So why even bother?

Surely not because some part of you that knows these things aren't true is crying out in denial. Not because you can see the concern on the faces of those around you—if you have them. If you can find the strength to look.

While it's easy enough—or no, not easy, simple—it's simple enough to find a good day or thirty during a lingering, soul-deep depressive state that goodness, optimism, hope, or even joy is truly only skin deep. Maybe it permeates through to the bottom layer of skin. If so, you're lucky, and I envy you because for the rest of us, or at least for me, something happens every day to strip away one more inch of what, where, and who I wanted to be at this point in my life until the picture I held to so strongly is riddled with holes and rips and scorch marks to the point of being unrecognizable. Those single days of skin-deep happiness are slowly chipping away at the life I wanted to have, the life I dreamed of that got me through my senior year of high school. At this point, even my memory of the full and clear image is more than fuzzy around the edges.

Here is a brief report of my life since graduation in June:
I've done some things I wanted to do, but there are more, important things that I haven't done.
I've seen and spent time with people I never thought I'd see again, but the people I really want to see are completely out of my life.
I've done things I never thought I'd be able to do, but other, personal things that used to come naturally have become incredibly difficult.
I've met, and as such now know, more people than I expected to know, but the people I spent the last six years with are no longer accessible to me.
I've matured in ways I never expected, but my coping skills have regressed to what they were during Frosh year at the latest and/or six years old at the earliest.
I've proven myself capable of so much more than I ever dreamed, but I haven't done anything more than spend my days in a constant state of idle, depressed boredom.
I've decided that I deserve more than I was settling for in so many aspects of my life, but I'm expecting progressively less and less in others.
I've got so many good ideas, but I lack the self-discipline required to actually be productive
I've been working hard to be a better person, but I've started to hate myself again.

I don't know what to do."


I wrote this several weeks ago during, obviously, an utterly downer mood. But that doesn't mean that those feelings don't follow me around from day to day. They do. That's what true depression does. Sucks, doesn't it?

Yes, yes it does.

No matter how many good, or even amazing, things happen to me, there is still always something that can be taken away. You can lose things even more quickly than you gained them, and when that starts happening with frightening regularity, the scales tip because suddenly the list of things you've lost is much larger and heavier than the list of things you have, many if not most of which are of little consequence.

I'm not trying for sympathy, okay? I'm trying to explain just a bit of what it's like to be in my head when things are going wrong. When things start going bad, my head is a very, very unsafe place to be. Not because I'm going to be so overwhelmed that I kill myself—I won't—but because there are times when I desperately want to.

Really, I'm so lucky in that regard: many people just give up.There's nothing around them, nothing within sight or reach, that is important enough for them to fight themselves for. Many people, an average of about 3000 people daily, in fact, just give up. And I, for one, don't actually blame them. I mean, yes, they're at fault, but I can't bring myself to be angry at them at all. Frustrated, yes—why didn't they try harder?—but the fact that they did it is pretty much evidence to the fact that, in most cases, they couldn't find anything worth living for. Which brings me back to my being lucky.

See, I've developed, after several years persisting misery, a respect for myself that I did not previously have. I was told hundreds of times, by several different people, the words which are paraphrased below:

"It gets better."

And after a few years, without even realizing it, I began to believe that things would, in fact, get better. Lo and behold, they did. Those simple words, or rather, that simple and persistent sentiment, fought its way to the core of my being through the thick and thin of the misery I was in without any help from me whatsoever and it has stayed there all this time. I do not always remember that I have this solid assurance that things will get better within me, but I know that it's true. I know that the pain, however terrible, is temporary. It will go away, and I'll be okay again.

That knowledge created within me another truth: If I give in and let myself die things won't get better, because there will be nothing at all; I'll be dead. Whatever kind of afterlife claims me, be it heaven, purgatory, hell, rebirth, or simple nothingness, I won't be in my life anymore, and that will be the end of that.

I can't kill myself because things will get better. And if things will get better I can't kill myself.

Simple as pie, really. It's a miserable existence, but I can and will keep living with the hope that the best of my past will be the worst of my future.


Ja na!

"It was like somebody else had the remote to my brain and they kept changing the channel before I wanted them to."—Canada Gold, 'The Thousand' by Kevin Guifoile

Apparently there's a book that features a character suffering from extreme ADHD. She uses the above statement to describe it, or so I gather. it seems,to me, an apt description of the condition that so many human beings possess or, as the case may be, are possessed by.

Having not read the book and possessed of no overpowering urge to do so puts me in the interesting situation of having something to say, a way to say it, a starting point for the conversation... and, perhaps, no one to listen. This is going to jump around a bit, but I trust that you'll be able to keep up with me. Here I go, regardless.

In this apparently Dan Brown-esque novel, The Thousand, there is a treatment used for ADHD that has numerous negative side effects. Well, okay. Welcome to the real world. Whether you medicate via prescriptions from doctors, recreational drugs, natural vitamins, sugar, laissez-faire, or universe juice, there will be both benefits and drawbacks. When I was on Ritalin, I had very little appetite. In fact, I was around 13 before I weighed more than 80 pounds. That isn't healthy. But during that time, I could focus like nobody's business.

It's a trade-off. There are many methods, styles, combinations, words of wisdom, whatever, that you can use when it comes to dealing with ADD, ADHD, and any number of other things. I would advise neither recreational drugs nor laissez-faire—"let alone"—personally, but to each their own. When a condition manifests in as many ways as ADHD does, there is no definitive answer.

I was once told, in fewer words, that I was weak for using medication. Extremely unsettled by this accusation,  I spoke to a few people about it. Through those conversations I came to a conclusion and formed a strong opinion on the matter. Speaking concisely, my opinion is this:

I disagree.

To elaborate on that... I don't think that having what society seems to see as a handicap and doing something about it is weakness. I don't think I've ever seen a truly weak person admit that they need help, because it takes strength to admit that. I believe that finding a method that helps you is strength. You aren't weak if you can gather the courage and determination to pick up the tools that are so readily available to you, and that includes everything from Ritalin to the aforementioned universe juice.

Think of it this way: there are two houses that are across the street from each other. In each house, a person is sitting down, watching TV during a rainstorm. Each person notices that water is dripping from the ceiling. In each household, there is a storage room containing miscellaneous tools and supplies. In fact, that room is only a few steps from the TV room. One of the people gets up, walks over, and takes a bucket out of the supply room. They put that bucket under the dripping water. Their neighbor, however, simply ignored the leak. The next time it rains, the first person gets the bucket again, and the second leaves the room so they don't have to deal with the dripping sound. Eventually both the roof and the floor will need to be fixed, whereas across the street, only the roof needs repair.

Which person do you think did the more practical thing?

Now assume that both individuals grabbed buckets to catch the dripping rainwater. The next day, the sun is shining and one of the two picks up the phone and calls a local roofing company to get the roof patched up before the next rain. Their neighbor puts the problem from his or her mind, instead choosing to go about their lives with no interruption, trusting that the good weather will hold. Well, a few days later it rains again. One roof is fixed, and the other is... leaking. Time for the bucket again.

That bucket doesn't get any lighter between when it is set down under the leak and when it is picked up and dumped out. Every drop of water adds up until that bucket weighs a substantial amount. Carrying it is awkward, cumbersome, and it grows ever more so as time wears on. Yes, carrying the bucket time and time again may make you stronger. But stronger for what? For the next rainstorm? The next time you have to haul that bucket from your living room to your back door? Well, at least their floor isn't rotting this time.

Now, there is obviously a metaphor there, whether or not what the metaphor is about is obvious. Let me spell it you for you: There is something that is either irritating, depressing, frustrating, embarrassing, problematic, and any other number of things. That is your situation. You can either choose to ignore it and end up with bigger problems than you started out with, or do something about it and minimize the damage your situation can do to your life. And no, the first solution may not be the right one for you.

Alternately, if the fence around your house is broken, and your neighbor's dog keep sneaking onto your property and knocking over your trash can, which of the following is more practical: A) digging through your garage until you find a hammer, nails, and wood,and fixing the fence, or B) expecting your neighbor to teach their dog to know better?

There are innumerable kinds of people in this world, any way you look at it. But they come in pairs—you are either proactive, or you are reactive. Your motivations are either intrinsic, or you are extrinsic. And as I am aware that those words are not typically used in such a fashion, I will explain. Intrinsic, in this case, means not just part of the whole, but from inside. You inspire yourself, while being being extrinsic means externally—other have to motivate you. To quote a very wise man I'm lucky enough to know, "If you're intrinsic, what's right propels you. If you're extrinsic, you think 'If only someone would have...' Most of the men and women in jail today are extrinsic."

Are you going to let the floor rot under you or will you minimize the damage? Will you try one thing and hope that, eventually, it will work, or will you find an alternative solution? Will you be proactive in improving the things you are unsatisfied with, or will you leave it up to someone else, whose work may never meet your standards?

You are the only one who can make these decisions for you. And if it's your child... which person do you want them to be? The person who is willing to use a hammer and make a little noise, or the one with trash all over their lawn?

Ja na!