BLACK. Depression & Suicide.

This month will mark a year since I was 'cured' of depression.*

Someone asked me this, reffering to a suicide,
"so what's the story?"
"they were depressed."
"well, obviously..."
This common attitude towards depression & suicide annoys me a little. Then I stop being annoyed and am grateful instead that the person doesn't know what it is like to be depressed.

Depression is a reason and a world within itself. It is illiogical, even by standards of emotion. It is a loud, indistinguishable pyschological pain. It can probably only be described by adjectives and poetry (though it is the most unpoetic experience) because it defies all other reasonable language.

Depression is a falling and falling into black. And even 'black' is too sharp, too defined. It's more the idea of black, a general shadowy haze that blankets all areas of life, if you can imagine such, because it alters your filter of reality. Absolutely everything is twisted. When I was depressed, I was disgusted at the ugliness that is the human spirit at it's lowest. There is no elegance, no grace, no silver lining to depression. Life is just a very unfunny, boring joke with death as the punchline. Punch.

Cause
 People ask about the cause of depression. There are no causes, only triggers. I differentiate because when you are depressed, your thoughts do not centre around the triggering event, as normal, 'healthy' sadness would. It centres around you and your unhappiness. And a 'solving' of the trigger will not 'solve' the depression as in sadness.

Some Symptoms
If you are depressed, you will find it very difficult to believe that anybody loves or cares about you. The idea that you are lovable is too foreign. You excuse loving actions with, 'they're just nice people'. And to tell someone you are depressed would be to shame and disappoint that person, burden and embarrass them, and it would only be you feeling sorry for yourself. It is also an utterly embarrassing to be a dysfunctional human being. You want to burst into tears 'for no reason' at the most inconvenient of times, such as the middle of the lecture. I can remember a classmate, after greeting me, commenting on how tired I looked. How could I tell her that I actually got 10 hours of sleep the previous night yet still felt so fatigued (an atypical symptom I later learnt is called hypersomnia).

One has no horizons, no hope for the future. One is blind to every prospect. The future is dismal, a pointless extension of the current meaninglessness of your existence. The only thing to clutch onto in your despair is the hope of death.

Suicide is final, complete, a certaintity of relief, something you can control. It is so different to the uncontrollable whirpool that is being alive, where every breath is pain. Suicide is an escape from your mind, the only escape.**

The End of the Beginning
Thank you for reading this post. I really hope to write more about this scary but real truth, depression. I will maybe share what my journey of healing was, and share where I think the disorder fits into Christianity. I think learning about these mental disorders is important.

Please leave a comment if you have any specific questions about depression.

*Please note that the following is an account of subjective experience, I'm sure anyone with depression would describe their experiences differently.

** Please note that I do not think suicide is an acceptable way of dealing with any life experience, I am only expressing a view that I held in my depressed mind. There is a better way to get better -and stay better!!!