depression

I have gone back and forth about what to write, and how to write it for a few days, but I need to say something, so I will just let myself go on about it for a while.

Suicide. 

There, I said it. Recent headlines of celebrities who seemingly had it all are shaking everyone's fragile little worlds - because if she couldn't be happy with billions of dollars, and he couldn't be happy with fame and seemingly having an amazing life, then how is there hope for the rest of us?

But the thing is, I find so much of it hypocritical. In one breath, they mourn for these lives lost (though it seems only because they're famous, and not necessarily what it means for their loved ones left behind who don't care that mommy was famous or rich - they care that she was mommy). In their last breath, though, they were telling someone who has actual depression to just smile. Just be happy. Count your blessings. Hey, it could be worse, right?

Our society somehow minimalizes depression, sweeps it under the rug, and then acts shocked when someone just can't take it anymore and ends it all. We treat each other like actual garbage, and then we wonder why someone broke.

A dear friend of mine whose depression keeps me worried most of the time, made the comment that she is no stronger than anyone who has killed themselves. It is through luck that she is still here, still standing, still breathing. It is luck that keeps her going - that keeps so many of us going - and not some imaginary force of strength, or of being better than anyone, or of somehow having better coping mechanisms or a more supportive or loving system of friends and family around us. It is merely luck. 

We hang on every day by a thread, that is mostly worn, and is mostly comprised of luck.

I am fairly vocal about my depression, about my bad days, about my hopelessness... and even through some of the things that I have gone through or talked about, I mostly have people somehow expecting me to just shake it off. Better days are coming, after all... the sun will come out tomorrow... it's all in your head... but I cam tell you - when you are in the belly of that beast, you don't see the sun, the better days, the hopeful things ahead. You see only depression, and waves of sadness, and your hopelessness washing over you.

And still they tell you it will be better, things will look up, you have so many things to be happy about.

And when you got to a point that you could no longer take it, they will mourn, they will act surprised, they will wonder how it got to this when you were so happy all of the time. It was such a shame, she was such a good person, she had so much to offer.

And yet they still somehow missed the screams, the cries for help, the way you slept the days away, and cried in the night.

But you should have just shaken it off, right?