I will win.
It’s the next morning and I’m still sick. If possible, I feel more sick than I did yesterday. The cold triggered a huge wave of depression when I woke up this morning, which took this time to remind me that there’s no one to take care of me when I’m sick like this, and that — while I am completely exhausted and even a flight of stairs seems insurmountable — I still have to drag my butt out of bed and do everything myself.
I am now considering that this is not necessarily a bad thing.
One thing has become clear to me in the past several months. I have a 10-year-old cloud of depression hanging over my head, and I’m not going to have a successful relationship until I can lift it myself without relying on someone else.
I remember when it all started. My best friend moved away when I was in 7th grade, leaving me with no one. I can remember wandering the playground idly (I still hate the fact that they gave 7th graders recess) with no friends at all. It was the worst 6 months of my life, bar none.
That 6 months of my life, somehow, still has a grip on me. I still get depressed and lonely, even when I have a boyfriend. I get even more depressed and lonely when I don’t have a boyfriend. The last 6 months of my life have been rough, and I’ve gone through a lot. I know this is a large transition in my life; it’s the same one most people go through when they get out of college and enter the “real world.” It is probably one of the largest transition periods I’ll go through. I would say I’m depressed about 60% of the time right now. No, when you see me online, or even when you meet me in person, you don’t see it. But it’s there, and it likes to come out at inopportune times (mostly when I’m going to bed or waking up.) It hits me when I’m most vulnerable and least expecting it, and it turns me from a confident CEO to an overly-emotional stress ball in seconds.
I’ve made the decision that I have to beat this or I’m not going to survive on my own. I know this from looking at my previous depression cycles. At some point, they all got so bad that I didn’t want to live any more, and I don’t want to be in that state any longer. Some of you would advise anti-depressants or even a therapist. Though I think a therapist would probably help me more than drugs, and I haven’t quite ruled out that possibility, I’m going to see if I can beat this one myself. It’s been part of my life for 10 years and I finally feel like I have the strength to tackle it head-on.
I know facing the depression will make me face some things I don’t want to face about myself. I’ve treated a lot of people I love poorly in the past. I have actually worked out most of those by this point thanks to Landmark forum. Now it’s time to turn inward and really focus on letting that go inside myself. It’s also time to build my self-confidence and really love who I am. I’ve gotten a lot better at that, but I’m still not 100%, and I turn on myself too quickly when I do something wrong. I also tend to blame myself for things that aren’t my fault, which just makes me miserable since I can’t fix whatever it is.
I realize that there is no perfection in this life, and I won’t ever be happy 100% of the time. But if I can focus on fighting through each individual depression and finally getting to the root of it and clearing that up with myself, I can at least have a positive, healthy outlook the vast majority of the time. I can’t run away from my problems any more and hide behind relationships. It’s time to get this out and taken care of once and for all.
