I'm sad. Everyday I'm sad. I've had people tell me to get over it, and I've had others defend me and say that depression isn't a choice.
In some ways they are both right.
Everybody gets depressed, my counselor told me. But when you've been sad for so long, you realize that sadness isn't just an emotion anymore. In the most quiet parts of my mind, I've mulled over the idea that I've come to treat it as a companion. Albeit, an unwelcome one. But in the midst of chaos, though they come hand in hand, sadness is better than loneliness.
Yes, I have a choice: not whether to be sad or not. It's impossible to stop yourself from feeling any kind of emotion. But, when you let sadness in with open arms, feed it with memories of regret and bitterness, and let it stay long enough to pervade your life, it grows into something that, without you knowing, destroys your life.
It's okay to be sad. But don't let it linger.
I know, oh, yes, I know that it is so much easier said than done. If all you've ever known your whole life is sadness, as a child, as a teen, and as an adult..
There are still many mornings that I wake up and ponder on whether today would be my last day. And whether it mattered. Whether anything I did ever mattered. What was the point of going to school again? What was the point of going to work? Because when you tried to look into the future, you saw nothing. And the rest of your day is tainted with a bleakness that cannot be fixed by words, or embraces, or drugs. It's an emptiness that has been growing inside, from a hole punctured in your soul long before you could even think for yourself. And all throughout your life, as you attempted to live as others do, you've subconsciously tried to fill that hole with meaningless, earthly things. But nothing ever worked. And that's where the sadness has stemmed from. Like an infection growing in a wound. And that's where you've kept it, cradled like a baby inside of you, where it's grown and mutated into a sick, horrid depression that whispers in your ear to jump off a bridge, because you're hopeless and you have no future and whether you died today doesn't matter because this world is diseased with selfishness and hate. No, not hate, but apathy. Because our empathy can only extend to what affects us. We attempt to love and be generous, and to some degree we succeed. But then we get caught in our own lives again, and we forget. And who's to say that the love and generosity that were given are genuine and unheeded of desires of expectation? It's a carnal cycle, inherent in humanity, deeply embedded in society. And the monster inside me laughs at my frail attempts to be otherwise. Because I am human. I am just like them. There is no point in being here.
I know what it's like to have a monster inside of me, that rages, and that oppresses me. I know what it's like to battle it everyday, and what it's like to give in. And what it's like to try and wrench it from your gut. The pain and the loneliness that quickly fill you. And I know what it's like to want to keep it, because throughout all the shit you've been through, it's the only thing that has ever stayed with you. And so you cling to it like a lost child. Because Happiness is a stranger you've learned not to trust.
I know what it's like when the pain around you gets too heavy, and the whispers get too loud, and though you've cried so hard that it shook deep in your bones, it didn't do much to relieve the pain. And you hurt yourself, because it was the only thing that stopped the walls around you from closing in.
But the monster inside of you, inside of me, is a cancer that is killing us. It is not a child to cradle, or a companion to welcome, or a friend to keep. It is a disease. A disease that can be cured.
If you're sad, that's okay. Some days are just harder than others.
But don't let it linger. Get help. Talk about it, because keeping silent will only feed it more. Don't give in to it's deadly whispers.
Keep living, and be better. Though I am not the best person to tell you how, as I am not there yet, don't be afraid to ask for a helping hand.
And I will attempt to do the same.
