every once in a while i feel a small sadness creeping up on me. sometimes it only lasts for a few minutes, other times a few days, sometimes a couple months, and other times several months to a year. the pattern is always that the longer it sticks around, the worse and worse it gets, until it progresses to full blown depression. contrary to what many people think, i do get regular sad sometimes. i can get sad over an emotional movie, a disappointing book, an unpleasant interaction, basically the typical things that could make anyone sad. but when I'm regular sad i usually have some reason or another to feel the way i do. when depression hits, it's something entirely different. i rarely get depressed for any particular reason; it shows up when it wants to--sometimes within a split second--and always overstays its nonexistent welcome. it feels completely different from regular sadness and I can always tell the difference. when i get depressed it feels like the darkness and hopelessness will never end. it's a crippling, debilitating, suffocating kind of feeling that smothers and overtakes everything. happiness is forgotten and I don't even understand how other people can feel it. I envy them and wish I could somehow feel the lightheartedness that they do. I forget how to smile, and when I somehow manage to, it's always forced and feels like I'm breaking on the inside even more because I know how much I don't mean it, but how much other people think I do. going on through everyday life while I'm depressed is such a struggle because all I want is help and to feel okay again, but my pride keeps me from admitting this to everyone but my best friends. even then, I feel guilty because it often makes them sad that they can't help. they can help by providing me company, words of encouragement, and a shoulder to cry on. but they can't cure it and they know this. I feel so guilty because the last time I was depressed I was talking about how much I just didn't want to live and it made my best friend cry. I feel guilty because the entire time people around me are having fun, I feel kind of like I'm dying on the inside, and I know I truly wouldn't mind it. I would embrace it, actually. I often forget how it feels to be depressed when it isn't currently happening to me, but I recently came out of a depressive episode that still feels so fresh that I'm comfortable writing about it since I still remember how it felt.
my last bout of depression started halloween night. halloween is my absolute favorite time of year, my favorite day and night of the year, and the most important to me in every way. I went out with my best friend but she got tired and wanted to go home early. so we did, but I started crying on the car ride home because I was so sad that my halloween, the night I count down to every single year, was cut short. I was sad. the next day I thought it would pass, but I was even sadder. the following day I knew something was seriously wrong because at this point, the sadness was getting more severe. I know cutting my halloween short triggered it and I still don't think I've fully recovered from it yet. certain things hit me harder than they would hit regular people, and this was definitely one of them. my sadness progressed into severe depression within the week. thanksgiving was coming up and so was Christmas, and all I wanted to do was celebrate with my family and friends, but it was getting worse each day. it got to the point where I literally couldn't feel anything but sadness and dread at the fact that I was still alive. I had to make up excuses: I'm sad that the Christmas decorations aren't up yet; I'm feeling sick; I'm sleepy; I'm just in a really mellow mood; I have a headache. the excuses went on and on, but I could only keep them up for so long. I used the Christmas decorations excuse first, so my mom put them up a couple days later. that excuse was gone, so I said I was feeling sick. lucky for me, I actually got a cold the next day. I was able to rely on this excuse for a few days, but eventually I got better. then I pretended to be really sleepy for a day or two, I said I was feeling really mellow and peaceful for a couple days, a few times I said I was quiet because I had a headache. luckily these all worked on everyone but my best friend, who could see right through it. I told her what was going on and she was sad for me, but we both knew there wasn't much she could do. so I went on like this. the quality of my work at my job was going downhill, my schoolwork was suffering, I was going to bed early but laying awake for hours staring at my dark ceiling while tears silently rolled down my cheeks. I was barely eating. eventually I started taking anxiety pills every night so I could fall asleep and forget I was stuck existing. every time I drove home from work and went across a high bridge on the freeway I daydreamed about driving right off it. everyday all I felt was sadness, until eventually I forgot what literally anything else felt like. normally when I start my period I take pain killers to stop the cramps because I get horrible, horrible cramps, but this time when they came I felt a sense of relief; I was feeling something other than the all-consuming sadness for the first time in weeks. I felt pain. it seemed like it had been forever since my body had felt anything other than dread and guilt in the pit of my stomach, so these cramps were such a welcomed pain. they kept me awake at night and had me curled up in a ball for a few days because they were that bad, but I refused to take any pain killers for them. I was finally feeling something else... not everything inside of me had died. I was going to be okay. the bad news is that as soon as the cramps left all I felt was sadness again.
a few days later we had our work holiday party, which was fun. I was feeling a little better that night so I decided to go ahead and drink. fast forward a bit to when we left the holiday party and I drunkenly tried to attack/fight some guy in a club--I'm a woman, and it's completely out of my character to try and attack anyone at all, especially a random man because he pissed me off. it's out of my character to even get angry when I'm drunk. I'm a super happy, friendly, cheerful, loving drunk on most days. I've never once tried to attack someone while I was drinking, and yet I did. the next day when I woke up I realized something was terribly off. that night I lay awake until almost 6 in the morning crying because I had decided to end my life, but I would wait until after the holidays passed. I was making plans for it, composing letters to all my loved ones, completely resolute in the thought that this was the only way and I would carry it out in about two weeks; I didn't want to ruin the holidays for my family, so I was determined to not be selfish and hold off until they were over. the following day (technically, later that same day since I didn't fall asleep until 6am) we had a team meeting at my job and each person had to go around and say the happiest thing from their week and the worst part of their week. when it came to me I made up something happy and said I couldn't think of anything sad. everyone responded with such joy at my lack of anything sad to share, but the truth was the exact opposite: I didn't have any one sad thing to share because my entire mind-frame was absolute depression, and it had been for weeks. I held back tears and forced a smile as the next person went. apparently I hid it well. at this point I was a mixture of numbness and dread at having to exist each day. I believe it was the next week that my work team did our own Christmas party and secret Santa. everyone was having fun and I was absolutely miserable, but I was cheerful on the outside. I played along, I laughed with everyone, I made jokes, ate food, and occasionally excused myself to the bathroom when I could no longer suppress the sadness and had to let it breathe for a couple minutes. I would silently cry, then wipe my eyes, fix my makeup, give myself a pep talk in the mirror, and waltz back out with a huge smile on my face. we ended the night with karaoke, but I didn't sing because I knew if I said a word I would break down in tears. it was getting that bad. I watched my friends/coworkers have fun but I no longer envied them, because I no longer felt any hope for myself. this was it. I wasn't coming back from the depression this time, and that was all. I only had two weeks left. I somehow managed to hold it together until it was time to go home, and once again, I cried myself to sleep.
the day I broke came shortly after. I had to work on a Saturday with the two coworkers I'm closest to, and luckily it was only the three of us there. we were all talking and laughing, but I could feel it: the persistent sting of tears and the awkward blinking I had to do to fight them back. I got up and said I'd be right back, then went in a different room to my desk and cried. a lot. for at least twenty minutes. I finally thought I was okay and emerged to rejoin my coworkers, but the second one of them asked if I was okay the tears returned. I nodded and left again, back to my desk because I couldn't hold it in. I probably cried for an hour. the ugly, loud, shuddering kind, before I finally talked to one of my coworkers. he knows about my disorder so I told him I'd been depressed for a couple months and it was getting so bad that I didn't know how much longer I could pretend to be okay. I didn't know what to do. I didn't tell him that I didn't want to live anymore, because I hate the look of pity that admission always gets me when I'm being completely honest. but really, I didn't know what to do anymore. he talked to me for a bit and brought me tissues, insisted that he didn't mind my smeared makeup if he hugged me and almost made me feel better. my other coworker, the best friend who I work with, came to check on me a bit later. I eventually pulled myself together, stopped hiding at my desk, and returned to work as best I could.
now I don't remember when this was during the timeline, but I saw my therapist sometime during this month and she was extremely concerned. I didn't tell her about my two week decision or exactly how severe the depression was, but she was still worried from what I did admit. she sent a message to my psychiatrist, whose nurse called me the next day. they suggested a couple new medications and we went back and forth a few times (we were trying to find something he suggested that I was comfortable trying, so she had to check with him and relay messages multiple times), but by the time they settled on a solid suggestion for me I felt fine. I had woken up that morning feeling normal again. but that very morning (a couple days after the breakdown at work), the depression had lifted and I was happy-ish. still not normal, but I wasn't feeling suicidal that day. to me that was all I needed. I asked not to start any new medications and I haven't felt the need to since then.
it's been about a month and a half since this episode ended, and I still distinctly remember the night I made my two week decision. I haven't told anyone about it. no one knows that if the depression had stayed just a couple weeks longer, I most likely wouldn't be here anymore. honestly, I still feel that it may happen one day. I really and truly don't want to take my own life on most days, but an extremely unsettling reality is the fact that some days, I do. some days I really, really do, and all it takes is for me to act on it one of those days and I'll be gone. there won't be any coming out of the depression, there won't be a chance to recover and change my mind and be okay again. if I ever act on it when I feel it's the only way, that'll be the end of me. and that's extremely terrifying. I never know what I'm going to do during an episode. I don't know if I'll wake up one day and realize I've spent all my money or moved to a new city to follow some random dream or started a new relationship I actually don't want to be in. I never know if I'm not going to wake up because the depression was too much handle, and in my haze I finally made a decision I can't come back from. I don't know. it's the scariest thing, and this fear is constantly in the back of my head. when depression takes over, I don't know what's going to happen. I've told people this before but most of them don't believe me. lucky for me, my best friend does. this is what I told her the other day that made her cry, and I feel absolutely horrible for that, but someone needs to know the truth. I want it to be known that if I ever do make that decision, it really, really wasn't me. it was the depression fully taking over and finally getting every ounce of me.