I don't have a diagnosis of depression so take this post lightly.
I have been getting very low moods since a young age. I stopped myself from crying between the ages 7 and 15 because I thought it would help control my mood. I stopped crying the year my Grandad died and I broke down on my 15th birthday in the back of a minivan. I can tell you that stopping yourself crying doesn't help at all.
What I mean by low moods is something I struggle to explain. I call it depression because I believe it's depression but without the diagnosis I feel a bit of a fraud.
I got very bad with my mental health between 19 and 23 and used to dissociate a lot and found it very hard to hide my problems which was the worst part for me. Some of that time was whilst I was living at University. I would have flashbacks and dissociate. It was like I was still inside my body but I couldn't physically control my body. And sometimes I would just fully blank on a few hours and go from being in a lecture to being outside my flat with no memory of the in between. It wasn't nice. It made me feel really uneasy and embarrassed. It massively affected my 2nd year of Uni. I quit before my 3rd year because I just wasn't coping and knew I wouldn't be able to hold down a career where I was my own boss.
But now when I think back to that I would prefer it to the depression. I have periods of depression and periods of sadness. When I am feeling sad I never remember how bad it was to be so low. I am in the low right now and it feels so bad.
I watched a documentary a few years ago about a boy who had depression. He described it as waking up to find the world is black and white and there aren't any colours. That's the best description I have heard so far. Everything is dull. Music is muffled. Films are slowed down with no plot. Colours are greyscale. And there is a flatline on emotions which is hovering right at suicidal and nothing can rise above that line, only below.
I have tried to describe how it feels when I am depressed but it isn't a great explanation. I can't quite get across how isolating and on edge it feels.
It feels like I am in a soundproofed box. I am on the inside and the sounds and colours and people are on the outside. They are right there but I can't get to them. I am locked in here alone and the walls are covered in razor blades. There is a noose above my head and it is dark. Everything bad that I have been told or felt in the past is right here every morning and every night replaying in my box. I don't feel like talking or sleeping because there isn't a point. I seriously consider saving money and running away for a few weeks before killing myself so I can't realistically be at risk of being saved. I get dressed and wash and eat not because I want to, just because I don't want anyone to know how bad I feel incase they try to keep hold of me when I need to slip away. Everything I do when I am feeling this bad is calculated so that if I do get to the point where I can't cope anymore I am able to kill myself without any warning.
Everything inside me is fighting against this post because it goes against everything. No one is supposed to know how suicidal I am. But no one checks this blog so I am safe for now. Safe. Not really.
I referred myself for help months ago but my mood dropped so low since. I can't go for that help until I am better because it isn't help for depression.
Sometimes it takes about 6 months to pass. I wake up and the colours are back and my heart is beating and it doesn't hurt to breathe. But I am still so sad that I can't enjoy myself. I am still so low. Just not depressed. But it is gone for a few weeks at most before it is back.
I have been struggling with coping since my nephew died and I had to drop out of therapy and speak to a social worker I hardly knew and my dad spoke to girls my age and I had to have IVF and we had 2 miscarriages. You can see why it keeps getting lower each time it returns and staying away for less time.
It hurts so much to exist. I don't have a diagnosis so I can't say much. But I know my mood is always suicidal or sad. There isn't a normal or a happy. I wish I remembered what happy felt like. Not just what it feels like to enjoy something. To have a good day. To smile. But to actually be happy. I haven't felt happy in so long.
I don't know how much longer I can force myself to live. It is so much easier not to.
