Depression Doesn’t Just “Go Away”

The relative that suddenly pulls up in the driveway, lugging their bags into the house, declaring their week-long stay will eventually leave. You will breathe a sigh of relief when the stay is done, help them pack their car, and wave from the front porch. The weight that is lifted from you is only darkened by the knowledge that they will return. It will happen again.

Depression isn’t fixable. There isn’t a solution, an ending, or a cure. It’s a thing you live with, not something you live until. It’s something you learn to deal with because it will not go away. It’s a monster that always exists, but one that hides in the shadows. It’s a relative that visits whenever they want, barging into your home to invade your space and monopolize your time.

More often than not, with an anxiety disorder comes depression, and vice versa. I fall into the category of someone that suffers from both. My depression came shortly after my anxiety, and as I described above, it still hangs around.

I am someone that is often described as outgoing, funny, ambitious, and confident. This means that when those around me learn of my anxiety disorder, they are often surprised. Learning that I am a sufferer of depression is something that seems unfathomable.

Because I am usually upbeat and talkative, there is the impression that my depression is either nonexistent from the start, or if there is knowledge of it, it exists no longer. It becomes the thing I beat, the rough patch I went through, the feeling that I once had.

It doesn’t work that way.

The relative that suddenly pulls up in the driveway, lugging their bags into the house, declaring their week-long stay will eventually leave. You will breathe a sigh of relief when the stay is done, help them pack their car, and wave from the front porch. The weight that is lifted from you is only darkened by the knowledge that they will return. It will happen again.

This is depression.

Personally, I like to say it like this: I am always depressed, because I am always suffering from the mental illness that is depression. However, there are times where I am actively depressed. If you are also someone suffering with this illness, you probably know what I mean.

If you have the flu, for example, you are sick with the flu. Even when you are not throwing up, you are still sick with the flu. The times that you’re throwing up are just worse.

Depression doesn’t mean that I’m laying in bed, only wearing black, hiding under the covers and crying off my thick black mascara.

Depression is like a predator: it doesn’t wear a sign. It both lives and hides amongst us.

While depression is a sadness, there is something so much deeper than that, and everyone’s experience looks different. My depression can look like a lot of things. It can be baggy eyes, a growth in time asleep, fewer text message replies, or overeating. It can also show itself with more Facebook posts, text messages at odd hours of the night, or insisting that I’m not really hungry. My depression can be my insistence that I want to get out and do something or it can be my car parked in the same spot for days. There are times I need to talk and will type paragraphs and pages of text messages to a friend, and there are other times I simply do not have the energy to reply.

There is no rulebook to depression: not what it looks like, how it appears, or how it leaves. There are no guidelines as to how you will act when it comes, and no way for you to predict its departure.

Some visits are more difficult than others.

My most recent bout has been a rather difficult one. It was the driving force behind my internet absence. I lacked energy constantly, fought to do so much as take care of my own personal hygiene, or even reach out to my closest friends. There were nights it was slicing me right at my knees, and days it whispered in the forefront of my mind.

I am happy to tell you that she has since packed her bags, started her car, and departed from the driveway that belongs to me. I have no doubt that she will return, but for now, I am alone. I am free.

This isn’t a feel-bad-for-me-post, and it is most definitely not your pity that I seek. What I do want to offer is an explanation, a cause to behavior, a reason behind forced conversation. What I ask for in return is the same thing I always require: knowledge, education, and attempts at understanding.

It is a vulnerable place to publicly write of your own mental health struggles, of course. Yet I guarantee you that there are multitudes of people closest to you struggling–not as open as I–that you have no idea about. I am hopeful, as always, that I can bring some sort of awareness to you. Take a moment. Look around. Ask the questions.

You never know who is in the midst of hosting a difficult relative.