I have ’suffered from’ (I hate that terminology, it sounds self-pitying and pathetic) depression for a loooong time. It’s been bad and worse. It’s pretended to go away and then came back for no reason and without warning. I’m starting to feel like it’s just a part of who I am, like there’s a part of me that’s just faulty and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I can remember the day it started. That sounds weird, but I can. I was sitting in class when I was 12, doodling on my folder instead of paying attention to whatever was going on and one of my friends spoke to me. I thought “I can’t even reply. I can’t speak because there’s just no point”. And that was that. A switch was flicked in my brain and something important stopped working.

Teenage years are never easy, for anyone. If anyone who reads this can tell me that they honestly went through their teenage years without anything terrible happening, without wanting to top themselves (even just once) I will send you a cookie and a congratulations card. Shit happened, more shit happened. Bring on the early 20s. More shit happened. Some great stuff happened too. I met the best people in the world, people who are my friends now and who will be my friends for the rest of this life and well into the next and the one after that. Friends who are like family make up for all the back-stabbing fucks. I also met my husband, D. He makes up for everything bad that has ever happened, ever. I swear, I love that man so much there just aren’t words for it. Anyway.

I guess the last couple of years have been the most change-y. I mean, I feel like I’ve been in a constant state of transition for…well, ever. Aren’t we all? But this last couple of years has been all about change for the better, change that I CHOSE, not change that happened. Things are looking up. So why am I not ‘better’?

I don’t have a fucking clue! I’m at that weird stage where I can objectively analyse my own emotions, where I completely understand why I’m feeling what I’m feeling, but I just can’t stop feeling it. Depression is different for everyone. For me, it numbness. It’s not sadness or despair. It’s a complete absence of anything. I don’t feel happy or sad or angry…just nothing. The only break from the nothingness comes in the form of bursts of obsession and panic, sometimes separately, sometimes together, sometimes with one following the other.

It’s not ALWAYS like that. Sometimes it eases off to the point where I catch myself thinking that THIS TIME, I might be ok. THIS TIME it might not come back. And then it does. And I still don’t know why. I can get on with life, working around it now. I can put it in a box and leave it there, and carry on with what I have to do, even when I’m feeling nothing. I can keep this up for short periods of time when I have to, or because I have to. Cause if I didn’t, what would happen? What happens when you don’t force yourself just to deal with stuff, or to get on with things even when you can’t deal with stuff?

A lot of mornings, I wake up in the middle of a panic attack, or I wake up crying. I cry for no reason, which is usually the start of a panic attack (of the fully awak variety), but I never seem to realise that’s whats happening. I kind of accept this as normal now, as the way things are. It’s not giving up. It’s just not giving in.