I think I am depressed. Again.
Lately, I have noticed myself to be distanced from my own life. I feel like an outsider looking at my life playing out. I have no interest in anything at all. I am typically someone who enjoys the little things, the little moments, laughs overtly at silly jokes, and loves hard and fast. Of late, I have consistently had no interest in the on-goings around me or even in my own life. Nothing excites me or affects me at all. The only things that get me riled up are social issues and the unfairness of this world. I am so so so very tired.
I just want to be left alone, even by my loved ones. I need them to be there and love me, but I don’t want them around me. I feel like spending my afternoons crying and my nights staring at my ceiling. I feel like a ball of pain, perpetually overwhelmed. Why does it feel like I have an anvil resting on my sternum?
Food has always been a big part of my life. In some of my worst depressive days, I found myself binge eating to soothe my soul. It did not help, but it sure did give me a life-long disease called diabetes and a multitude of other health issues. People do not talk about the side effects of binge eating. It is easy to romanticize eating disorders that do not allow their victim to eat, because we see that weight loss as something beautifully sad, instead of the pain that consumes them.
Nobody wants to see a fat girl, already perceived to be ugly, eating out of sadness. It is much easier to write her off as lazy and greedy, than to admit that most of us suffer from mental illnesses that affect each one of us differently. Please don’t get me wrong. I am in no way belittling eating disorders that result in reduced eating, or skinny-shaming anyone. I understand the struggle that comes with people constantly having an opinion about your body. What gives them the right? However, I must consider the fact that fat -shaming is much more prevalent and often looked at with disgust. I am fine with that too. I no longer particularly care. I just wish I’d known the damage I’d end up doing to my own body. Would I have been able to control it? Maybe. Maybe not. I will never know.
These days, food bores me. I look at it and wonder if I must eat this to survive. None of my favourite foods bring me any joy. In fact, I barely even feel like eating, even when I’m hungry. 2 bites in and I’m done with my meal. If the hunger pangs are gone, must I continue eating? I’ve had a great relationship with food, apart from my binge-eating days, and this sudden aversion to it is hitting me harder than I thought it would.
TV shows and movies bore me, I don’t feel like meeting anyone at all, I don’t feel like painting or sketching. I have no will to move most days. And yet, I must continue to live my life. Who’s going to pay the bills?
I just lie there, one half of my brain screaming at me to move, to get ready for work, to start studying for my exam, to go for a walk, to take my insulin, to clean my room, to call my mom. But the other half? The other half cannot hear. It’s trapped in a hazy cloud of nothingness with no will to pull itself out of there.
I used to suffer from self-harm as well. It’ll be five years clean this coming October. Can I make it that far? The urge has been getting worse. It’s so hard to push it back yet again when it only comes back stronger than before.
It’s been a difficult week. I’ve been through these troughs so many times before, but it’s just been a while for me. And perhaps this trough is a little deeper than I expected.
Some days, I just want to return to my hometown and lie in my mother’s arms. But can I find solace in the arms of someone who doesn’t know this side of me?
It’s hard. It’s harder than most people understand, isn’t it? Those blessed with a mind that isn’t riddled with invisible illnesses that threaten to snuff the lights out, might never understand. And honestly, I’m so very glad that they’re safe from these horrors.
Some horrors you can escape. Some you can fight. But what do you do when the horror is your own brain stuck in a nightmare loop?
Who’s going to save me from my own mind?