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.
