Saying my Depression “kicked in” when I was a kid feels like misnomer. Phrasing it that way makes it sound like it crashed on my couch for a while but covered utilities that month, or took care of the tip at brunch because it was the only one with cash handy. But living with it for the vast majority of my life and the thick, viscous protective membrane of apathy it’s coated me with like the world’s saddest foam rubber has let me spot a few unexpected uses I’ve managed to unintentionally sharpen over the decades, and I think it’s totally doable for every one of my kind.
Don’t misunderstand, for every debatable benefit there’s a number of drawbacks so huge it confounds both man and gods alike. It’s not called mental fulfill-ness, after all. But I’m a half-full type of pessimist and I prefer to reflect on some of the unique insights and perspectives having an emotional disorder can offer, because that’s one of the only ways my neurons will permit me to feel comparatively special to the rest of the global populace. Think of it this way: if life is a tomahawk about to settle just above your face, Depression is the dense ridge of your skull that just might keep the lobes of your brain from a literal messy divorce.
AH, BUCKET.
I can’t say that I’m much for travelling. Frankly, if I wanted to pay gobs of money to wait in overcrowded lines to see one or two incredible things but mostly be reminded of the gross inequalities of the world I could just go to the emergency room. But gallivanting around the globe is what gets brought up most often when the topic of bucket lists gets broached by the members of my pack, and I have to say that this idea of demise-inspired urgency is completely lost on me.
That’s not to say there aren’t some things I wouldn’t mind experiencing before I breathe my last, but I also spend a good deal of my waking life not, in fact, caring about my waking life. Even when things are going pretty cherry, Depression still has a habit of whispering to you from the back of psyche, reminding you that dying is really the only lasting peace you’re likely to get (and appropriately enough you won’t be around to enjoy it). So when getting waist deep in the Styx is what you most look forward to, the pressure of putting life goals and obstacles between you and it is pretty much nonexistent. The bitter cocoa truth is that we’ll all die with some type regret attached to us like psychological lamprey regardless of what you were or weren’t able to pull off before your literal deadline. And when your serotonin levels are constantly yelling at you that we all end up in the same unknown, and that your experiences likely don’t go with you or really make a difference if they do, there’s no point in feeling a sense of weighted failure that you didn’t force yourself to do the whole middle class wandering vagrant thing during your gap year.
WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY DREADS.
The whole canard about searching for and fondly remembering “special moments” to help combat one’s disinterest in living is, as the most learned of the ancient sages have recounted it, “dumb.” That’s like saying the rush of relief I feel when my aspirin kicks in means I should be grateful for the skull-rendering headache. It is a little different when it comes to “special people,” though. Depression, and its frequent ring partner Social Anxiety, can create a borderline paranoid distrust of basically the entire global citizenry and certain scornful types of plants. But for the scant few who can breach your defenses and somehow prove they aren’t there to completely scourge you, dear Sweet Baby Ray’s do they ever trigger the best parts of yourself.
It doesn’t matter how terrible at confrontation you are or how hard certain feels are to come by, when life foists remarkable people on you that also annoyingly contradict your own perceived lack of value, suddenly it feels like you could easily burn the world down for them and still have the energy to think of a degrading nickname for the ashes. It’s easy to see these worthy few as the only croutons in humanity’s dressing-heavy detritus salad, and so digging into your personal rations of protectiveness, devotion and zeal and dishing it out to them instead becomes both first and second nature. Obviously these beautiful souls will frequently get on your case about never pointing that nurturing energy in your own direction, which is ironic since that only makes the adoration dig deeper and makes you focus even less on yourself and ‘s’-in-the-word-lisp-level pointlessness.
HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN QUIT.
Oh right, the pointlessness. Depression can make you feel like an inside out barrel cactus with regard to your personal importance, but there’s an upswing in that it keeps your modesty reflexes incredibly limber. Yes, I get that saying that is in fact the polar opposite of actual humility. But in my defense, it’s also what made writing a thousand-word personal experience article take upwards of six weeks because you’re positive nobody will find this bit of drifting verbal flotsam the least bit entertaining when they’re surrounded by objectively better options for their reading bemusement. And that’s if anyone even bothers to read it at all.
Pride feels like that pointy chain thing the albino assassin from Da Vinci Code kept wrapped around his thigh to keep himself focused if he found his thoughts starting to wander away from foiling museum guides or something. I don’t know, I watched it on Amtrak with one working earbud. But positive self-evaluation usually only lasts a beat before you get that stinging sensation that you haven’t done anything nearly special enough to earn it, let alone anybody else’s. Validation is something you only get out of sympathy as far as you’re concerned so it makes you cringe harder than amateur night at the improv, because how can anyone possibly feel it sincerely for you when you’re the absolute worst? But somehow, in between bouts of lethargic self-loathing, that same doubt can push you to try even harder and not rest on the laurels you’re sure you didn’t actually earn. The craving for validation, to be genuinely worthy of singular praise, won’t let you be content with anything you accomplish or be proud enough to be boastful. Even though you know deep down nothing will ever soothe that satisfying achievement rash, you can harness that self-perpetuating cycle of inner defeat into a bizarre power source to never stop trying to do better.
Now, imagine my hand on your shoulder, because this final bit is super important. Harnessing these Depression powers is impossible to do without some form of treatment, and even then it doesn’t always go gangbusters. Therapy and meds can help quite a bit, but truthfully they can also be a grueling, lengthy, discouraging process to figure out what works. Sometimes nothing does. But it’s worth it to try. See you in part two.
—
Shutterstock
The post Chronic Depression Is the Best Disease of All Time appeared first on The Good Men Project.
Original Article
