Trespassing Strangers

Introduction

They say that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem; as far as I could see, that just wasn't the case. Suicide is a permanent solution to a permanent problem. And that's because depression, well, the sort I had, isn't something that just goes away with a bit of time. It's not at all like just being sad because something bad has happened, like your boyfriend leaving you or someone you love dying. It's different. It's a part of you. It's in you. It is you.

Depression sticks closer to you than your own shadow. It doesn't need an excuse to pin you down to the ground. And worst of all, there's nothing you or anyone else can do about it: it is your master, and you its slave.

Sure, drugs can balance you out for a little while. But as soon as you stop taking them, it jumps back on your shoulders, wraps its arms around your neck and chokes you until you huff and puff your final breath. And I wasn't prepared to spend the rest of my days apathetically numb either. It just wasn't a life I was willing to lead. I couldn't. And yeah, sure, psychologists can help some people. They can help people who've a pretty shitty perspective on life. They can help those who see things through a super distorted lens. They can assist those in need of a little supervisory push, who are taking a little longer than normal to gain footing on this tight rope that is life. But there was nothing that a psyche could have done for me, and I'd known that since I was seven.

What can you possibly say to a girl who already knows that the problems she's making in her mind aren't real? What can you say to a girl who already appreciates that she has very little control over the guilt-riddled movies that her brain incessantly projects? What can you say to a girl who comprehends perfectly well that the horrors living inside her are all works of fiction, a side effect from an over imaginative mind, an unbalanced biochemical disposition? Not much.

And don't think that I didn't try to get help from outside sources. Over a span of ten years, in an attempt to pull myself back from the cliff's edge, I'd seen 23 psychologists. That means I had twenty-three different perspectives to chew on, twenty-three heads of knowledge to feed off. But this was to no avail. I didn't stand a chance. There was nothing anyone was going to say or do that was going to change the cards of fate my life had drawn. The only entity to blame for this 'tragedy,' as so many people turned the phrase, was an imbalanced genetic disposition. And, well, I guess, my being born into a world that I could not at all comprehend. Maybe if I were born into a different family, or in a different country, in a different era, things would have been different? I dunno. No one knows. That's life, I guess.

Some say that suicide is selfish. I can't help but agree with them. It is. But those people don't know what it's like to feel the way I did, every second of every day, knowing well that there is no reason behind it. They don't know what it's like waking up every morning wishing for it all to end, because your entire being is wincing in hurt, begging for some sort of remedy. It's impossible to understand this form of psychological cancer unless it has made a nest in your own personal psyche. The most important factor to consider though is that people don't understand that we, The Depressed Ones, don't always intentionally want to cause our loved ones any suffering. Not all of us are angry at the world, not all of us are trying to prove a point, and not all of us are looking to make those around us suffer as we are. Often, it's far simpler than that. Some of us just want to evaporate into the background without anyone noticing. That's all. We're purely and simply sick of the pain. We're sick of the agony. We're sick of the hurt that is living. So, selfish as it may be, you can judge me if you want to, but you'll never truly understand why things had to be the way that they were.

Depression doesn't ask for your permission to enter your life. It haunts you. Wherever you go. Wherever you are. Whatever the circumstance. That's just the way it is. And what's even worse is that you always know when it's coming. You know when you've only got a few hours left to savour before the shore washes you in, leaving you stranded, alone, and utterly helpless in the deep black sea. The night falls quickly.