A Shattered Mind

If you’re reading this, maybe there’s something ‘wrong’ with you.

Maybe you’re broken. Maybe you’re depressed.

Maybe your heart feels like it’s been stabbed with a butter knife.

Maybe the person you love loves another.

Maybe you feel inadequate.

Maybe society says you’re a little too heavy, or a little too thin.

Maybe you don’t wear sandals because your toes are wonky.

Maybe your face is asymmetrical.

Maybe you only wear long sleeves because of the scars.

Maybe you cry yourself to sleep every night and wake up every morning full of regrets.

Maybe your mind can’t focus in school or at work.

Maybe you aren’t perfect.

I’ve had a very large change of heart as of late. I’ve always wanted to leave the world a better place than I found it, but depression, self-loathing and social anxiety and just the utter hopelessness of it all has left me feeling like nothing I can do will ever be good enough for anyone.

Now I see.

I’m not cured. I’m not fixed. I’m not a normal, functioning member of society. I never will be. The thing that’s changed, though, is that I’ve accepted that and learned to love it. It’s taken 17 years to cope with who I am.

I’ve been through the shittiest hell that there could ever be. I cried myself to sleep every single night and sliced open my legs with a razor every morning. I hated myself. I wanted to die. I tried to die - seven times. Each time I failed. I didn’t know why. Now I do.

I’m going to try my part to keep others from feeling the same sense of despair and hate.

You. Are. Beautiful.

You are strong. You are the strongest damned person I know. Nobody else would ever be able to live through what you do every day. If you can’t believe you are beautiful, if you can’t accept anything else about yourself, at least accept that you are strong, because you are. The fact that you can wake up every morning proves that, because God knows it is a living nightmare to crawl out of bed every damned day and pretend to be okay.

It feels like there isn’t any point, sometimes. It feels like no matter what you say or do or think that nothing will ever turn out okay in the end. It feels like you’re a prisoner to the cruel fate of the world, and no amount of reassurance can ever change that.

I can’t repair that feeling. I don’t claim or expect to be eloquent with words enough to help someone. All I can do is try.

Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe you’re crazy. Maybe all of us are just fucking crazy, so hopelessly beyond repair that nothing can ever save us from ourselves.

I refuse to believe that’s the end of it, though. I refuse to believe that nobody can be helped. Nobody can ever be fixed or cured or saved or whatever adjective you wish to use, but they can feel joy. They can feel love. They can love themselves.

If I believe anything, I believe that.

You are strong. You are beautiful. You will get through this.

There are so many vapid blog posts; omgshoes, omgclothes, omgmyliefsux (which I am guilty of, I admit). There are very few that try and talk to the reader directly. I’d like to do that.

~

Depression is like trying to tightrope over a field of quicksand miles long. The stress of not falling ruins your balance and concentration, and once you fall in, it’s hard to get out.

Depression has almost become colloquial with sadness in today’s society, but it’s far, far from it. Everyone gets sad at times. Depression - true depression - goes far beyond that. It’s numbing. Every fiber of your being screams in agony until you just can’t feel anything anymore… And not feeling is far worse than any sadness. You’ll do anything - anything - to feel something, anything at all.

Pain is the easiest feeling to get. It isn’t hard to cause yourself pain. You can run down to the gas station; for a couple bucks you can grab a lighter and burn your arm until you know you’re alive. You can hop down to the grocery store and grab a couple of disposable razors. Only living things bleed, and you’re still alive, right? It doesn’t feel like it. A little pain will bring you back down into your body. Blood or burns or scratches or bruises - you can’t be detached from your life if you’re in physical pain.

The detachment… That was the worst part. For me, at least. It’s an otherworldly thing; to watch your life pass by like a story you have no say in. A part of you wants to scream, to love, to feel joy, to find your loved ones and hold onto them and never let go, but the rest of you is just too numb and too distant and God, what you wouldn’t give to just be normal. Why can’t I, why can’t you, why can’t anyone with depression just be normal? Why are we so broken? So detached? Where is this pain coming from, if it can even be called pain any more?

I wish I could answer those questions; for my own sake and for the sake of those around me, for the sake of everyone who suffers and struggles. I wish depression were something that could be fixed with a few battered cliches and a warm smile. I wish it were easy.

Most of this will fly over the heads of people with depression. It’s a mindset impossible to escape without help. That help probably won’t come easy, and this is far from professional help, but if you’re hurting, or so far beyond hurting that you can’t feel…

I love you. Your family loves you. You are loved. You might ignore this, you might feel unloved anyways. You might feel all hope is lost and broken, just like you. I was the same way, and I still am to an extent. I’m not better, I’m not cured. I don’t have a fix I can recommend or a pill to make it go away permanently. Depression will always be a part of you. It’s not about escaping your depression, it’s about accepting it.

You are loved, and the dawn will come.

It could be said that the only thing I truly fear in this life is not knowing. It seems, however, that lately not knowing is the only thing I have been capable of in any large capacity.

I have been accused of being unfaithful, unloving, unemotional with no capacity for empathy. It’s almost ironic, for the opposite of those traits have been my downfall through my whole life. I will give anything and everything to make another happy in whatever way I can. My life has been nothing short of devoted to other people. My therapist told me once that I should look out for my own happiness - that if I did, perhaps the symptoms of my depression would fade, that my anxiety would lessen if I stopped completely consuming and bearing the burdens of those around me.

For once, I have done just that. I have done what I feel is proper, and yet I find myself on the receiving end of hate and revulsion.

A sensible person would, perhaps, realise that those who hate you for following your heart are simply bad friends.

I wish it were that simple for me. I have avoidant personality disorder. I can’t take criticism or rejection of any form lightly. It’s horribly ridiculous and has destroyed my life. I can’t even smile at someone I like without feeling so self-conscious that I want to go vomit in the restroom.

And, again, all this has led me to my greatest fear in life, the fear of simply not knowing.

Did I do the right thing? Will I ever find anyone to love again - or to love me? What am I? I’m broken, after all. Just a broken, stupid little girl. That’s why I was in therapy, after all. I needed to be fixed. That’s why I’m on enough antidepressants to choke a horse. I have a problem.

I wish I could put a disorder on the fear of not knowing, or the ability to fall head-over-hills for someone you barely know or the inability to put thoughts into a concise phrasing. It would make life so much easier to say that I have X or Y or Z and that’s why I do A and B and C. It’s been almost too easy to cope with depression that way. I have major depression. I can take a couple pills. I’ll feel better.

I have social anxiety disorder. I can pop a Xanax before I deal with people and life is wonderful.

I would give anything for there to be a pill to take to stop the constant need to know. Perhaps the pursuit of knowledge is life’s greatest goal, and I am far above the rest in achieving that, but gods, I hate it.

I want to be happy. I want to be content. I want to feel loved and I want to be able to feel love. I don’t want this gnawing emptiness inside of me that begs to be filled with knowledge, fly-by romance or games or whatever. I want stability.

I tend to reflect things I am given. Perhaps, then, it is a stable person I need.

But nobody stable will put up with me. Will they?

I have a pathological need to fix people. I need to make everyone around me the happiest they could possibly be. And if I fall short of that, even by a millimetre? My self-worth falls to the ground and shatters into pieces.

I need to be perfect. I need to be perfect for everyone and everything around me. And if I’m not? I often feel like being less than that is worse than being dead. It’s a feeling I can’t describe. If someone’s life around me isn’t perfect, if they aren’t the happiest they’ve ever been, if they aren’t perfectly and completely and fully and absolutely and 100% intensely happy, I lose it.

It keeps me from everything. I feel like if I’m not perfect, I’m nothing. And nothing can stop that feeling.