Longing for the Sea

the divorce

If I'm going to take the time to write an autobiography, I want to be brutally honest about what I've experienced in life, and unfortunately, that includes a lot of ugly details. I could sit here and be superficial by focusing on the good things in life, but I would be doing myself and anyone who ever reads this a disfavor by putting across such a facade.

I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and major depression this year. It's so hard to describe what depression is like because it's so hard to find a place to begin. Some think it's being sad and crying all the time, but there's so much more than that.

Depression is lying in bed and feeling a heavy pain in your chest that tells you to stay curled up under the covers and ignore your priorities. It's staring at the ceiling cursing at yourself for being such a failure and not having the energy to eat or go to school. It's feeling trapped and stuck in a vicious cycle that has no end nor beginning because you can't remember a time before this, what it felt like to be normal.

Depression is a beast that lives inside your brain and screams as loud as it can when you're trying to do homework, talk to your friends, pay attention in class, or try to do anything to keep a sense of normalcy in life. Because when you're depressed, your life feels anything but normal. You feel so unlike yourself, and you want nothing more than to just live in joy instead of year, but you can only do so much to change the chemicals in your brain.

Anxiety is the constant fear that people are going to leave you, that everyone hates you, and that the people in your life couldn't care less about you. It's a constant rut of over thinking and feeling that no matter how hard you try, you will never amount to anything in life. You would rather decline an opportunity out of the fear of failure than take a risk and achieve success.

Depression is thinking that nobody would miss you if you were gone, the world is better off without you, and your existence doesn't make a difference. It's so easy to feel your life doesn't matter, and there's no point in living only half a life. I say half a life because when you're depressed, you don't feel like you're living. You feel like you're just going through the motions and doing things because you have to, and you're certain that if you don't do those things, you'll beat yourself up about it later. You're just breathing, not living. You're doing anything but living.

Depression makes you blank when you're talking to people because it takes so much energy to think of coherent sentences. You forget where you are, who you are, and what you're doing. You feel so disconnected from the world and what's going on around you.

Anxiety is tapping your foot when you know your name is going to be called when the teacher is calling roll, and you're worried that your voice will sound weird. You're not sure if this is something everybody experiences or it's just you, but it still bothers you nonetheless.

Anxiety is being scared to turn an assignment into the tray because you might trip or run into a desk. You dread reaching the end of a test because you know you'll have to get up and turn it in, so you spent ten minutes "looking over your answers" to stall.

Anxiety is spending the entire week dreading the test you have on Friday and wishing you could just take it immediately so you can stop worrying.

Depression is being angry at yourself for feeling so out of control of how you're feeling. You keep telling yourself that the negative thoughts you have aren't true, but they feel so true in the moment, and you can't help but want to act on them.

Anxiety is snapping at the people you love because you're stressed, and you know you can't control it, but you still feel incredibly horrible about it later.

Depression is trying to ignore the thoughts in your brain because you can't distinguish what's logical and what's irrational. You know your best friend doesn't hate you because they text you all the time and hang out with you on the weekend, but when they don't text back right away, you immediately assume they're mad or got into a car accident.

Depression is staying awake at night because there's no point in going to school the next day when there's a voice in your brain telling you you can't do it.

Anxiety is having a panic attack and feeling like the world is ending.

You feel like you can't trust yourself when you're depressed because you feel so unlike yourself, and the thoughts you have are anything but your own. You want nothing more for it to just stop and go away, but there's no quick fix. There's no magic pill or advice that'll take all your problems away, and you can't help but wonder how much longer this will go on or how much longer you can even handle it.

Some days are better than others. You're able to live with it and still laugh and enjoy life, but there are other days where you crash and hit rock bottom again. It's a hellish roller coaster that is inescapable, and the only way to fight it is to learn how to live with it until it decides to go away.

Depression is feeling everything yet nothing all at the same time.