Two Sides of a Coin

Happiness is a slippery slope when you battle depression. There’s an ebb and flow that is sickening, you’re trapped in a labyrinth of confusing turns. A few right turns and you think you’re home free, then you take a left turn and realize you’re still stuck inside that same labyrinth.

Depression is a slippery slope when you’re happy. It comes out of nowhere and then swallows you whole. It starts with something small like fatigue. You don’t feel like waking up before noon— so you don’t. Then you don’t feel like going to that appointment— so you don’t. Things begin to pile up and before you can muster the energy to tackle it the pile is too big and overwhelming to touch— so you don’t. The pile just festers in the corner of your mind while you try to sleep it away. But then during your sleep depression finds you still, bringing you nightmares that pull at your heartstrings. Eventually these nightmares leak into your everyday thoughts, now despite your happiness you come to see... depression has returned.

It’s a confusing concept, depression and happiness coenciding. But it’s real. Depression doesn’t always have to have rhyme or reason, it doesn’t have to be plausible or obvious. Even stranger, depression doesn’t mean a void of happiness. They always say light will drown out the dark, so why can’t that apply to my depression? Why can’t the two emotions be detangled from one another?

Without my unwanted depression I wouldn’t be able to feel the true weight of my happiness. I wouldn’t be able to feel that this is what a happy heart feels like. Against my will  my happy heart reminds itself of a time it was in much pain. Unfortunately, I still feel that pain, in those moments I relive that pain and take it in. The pain can still consume me and this is what pisses me off. Why can such a happy heart be consumed with so much pain? Light should be able to drown out the dark. But life is not so simple. We must face the things in the dark before we can reach the light switch, and just because we turned on the light doesn’t mean the monsters don’t still lurk under the bed.

I am happy and I am sad. I am full of life and defeated. It hurts because I’m so happy and it hurts because I still have scars. I do not wish for my depression to define me, and I’m still working on that, but I will not pretend it doesn’t exist despite the happy heart. This is me, for now, depressed and happy, making my way through it one day at a time.

An Open Letter to the Boy Who Came and Left

I am not sure I can explain it to you, and I am not sure you would even get it if I tried-- but I've had a love for you from the start. At first it was confusing and I didn't understand it. I saw purity, pain, kindness, knowledge, and life in you. But it was confusing. Because you didn't show an interest in me persay, but I saw it in your body language. The first time we hung out and you almost cuddled me absent mindlessly-- catching yourself at the last second. I saw it in the way you fought back smiling when I said or did something. I saw it, but I was confused. I was so used to guys falling for me fast and hard and convincing me to fall for them back, and once I was convinced, they would leave, changed their minds. So I didn't understand why you fought what ever feelings you had for me. But then you opened up.

I had a love for you from the start. Not the "love at first sight" or the "blinded by love" type of love you see in movies. A pure love. I saw you as something beautiful in my life, not as mine, not as my love, but something to love. Simply being around you was calming and energizing all at once. When you began to open up to me and our friendship became a little more than just friends my heart started blossoming. It felt amazing being around you, I felt loved. I never asked you to tell me you loved me, I didn't need that sort of reassurance, I felt it. And that was all that mattered.

Then you started coming around less. The end of the night no longer began "I will never NOT want to go back to your place if you let me" (from you) but "ehhhh I have homework tonight, another time". You started forgetting me, I guess. I am not sure what it was. Am I forgettable? Did you not feel as good being around me now as you used to? Or was it something else?

Life started hitting you in ways it usually hits me. So I tried to be patient. I knew all you wanted to do was shut me out, shut everything out. I got it. But it started reaching a point I didn't know if you would ever let me back in. Not that you ever really let me in very much to begin with, but this was a whole new level of shutting me out. But still, I was patient. Because I knew it could be worth it.

You were confusing. I was not used to being in a new "relationship" were the guy didn't want to be around me 24/7. That's how all of my relationships have been honestly. They come, they're addicted for a week or two, or maybe even a couple months, and then they get burnt out. But with you, there wasn't that addiction, there wasn't that burnt out, it just was. And I decided that was good for me, that was a much more healthy way to go about things. But then you shut me out.

You made me happy in ways I haven't been in a very long time. Healthy ways. I did not feel a need for you constantly, I felt a want often, but you were not the focal point of my life-- and that was refreshing. You were not bad to me. You were not good to me either. You just were a happy and loving person for me go to. So now I am still so confused. You are making me hurt in ways I haven't hurt in a very long time. My heart aches. My heart doesn't feel broken and destroyed like it has from my past few break ups, but it aches. I am not sure this ache is a better feeling. But I have to believe it's a healthier way to feel.

Thank you. Thank you for teaching me to go about things in a more healthy way. You restored in me patience. You restored in me independence. You even are teaching me a healthier way to grieve.

But that does not mean it does not hurt. That does not mean I understand. Why did you choose to leave? Is it something I did? Was I simply not what you wanted? Or were you protecting me? Was your future going to affect us? Did you see a bad side in you coming out that you wanted to keep from me? Or did you come to see I was not worth it like all of those that came before you? Did you just learn earlier than most that I am more work than any person is worth dealing with?

I am hurting, but I'm not all at once, it's so confusing. Why does everything with you have to be so confusing? Sometimes I can't breathe and my blood goes cold when I think of you, other times I smile.

So this is an open letter to the boy who came and left, I have always had a love for you, and I always will. But you have always confused me and unfortunately I fear you always will. You were not bad to me, but you were not good to me either. You gave me a lot, happiness, health, joy, independence, and now pain. I wish you would have not given me the latter.

The Worst Best Friend

You know that one best friend that sticks to you like glue? Not by your own choice, but by their own. They step into your lives and refuse to leave. They are nosey and loud and unfiltered. Constantly making you uncomfortable, you feel rude for being nice to them but truly resenting them inside. They behave as if you are the closest of friends, but never truly provide you any type of support as a friend should. You are constantly carrying their weight around, supporting them and showing them love because despite their flaws you feel they deserve it. Sometimes their presences ebbs and flows, they disappear for weeks or even months. For a brief moment you find yourself missing them in a sense, but in another sense you feel as if you can finally breathe-- you are free of guilt and the weight.

My depression is my worst best friend. It comes and goes. Sometimes I forget it exists, but it's always there hiding-- ready to jump out and attack me at any point. It reveals all of your deepest secrets and vulnerabilities, just like that typical worst best friend. When the depression is present it is suffocating, it pushes and prods until you can no longer resist. It makes you break. Your breaking point means no filtering, an inability to keep your deepest pains to yourself, you can no longer hold in your feelings and thoughts, nor can you see that part of you most recognize as reasoning.

Depression means self doubt, self hate, amplified pains, physical discomfort, and non-stop chanting in your head. There is no breathing, there are no breaks, no stops. During those brief intervals of depression free days that does not truly mean freedom. Without depression one can only brace themselves for the return of the depression, there is constant fear of the return of the depression. Freedom is not without weight or flaws. Once you let in the false sense of security your security blanket is ripped from you just to make you feel twice as stupid as your depression naturally does.

My depression is my worst best friend. Although I have some great best friends, they can only ward off the depression so much. Depression is an internal issue, friends are external remedies that can only scratch the surface of the internal pains one suffers with. The internal remedies modern medicine offers brings more complications than results; otherwise, there really are not internal remedies available.

You know that one best friend that sticks to you like glue? You know how when you were in kindergarten your peers teach you to put elmers glue on your fingers and then once it dries you can peel it off? My depression does not stick to me like elmers glue... my depression is super glue. Not super like Superman or Superstar... but like an impenetrable stickiness. This super glue cannot be washed off... it cannot be peeled off... it will not leave.

My depression is my worst best friend and I am tired of it's presence.