As I try not to like a whiny little bitch who feels the world problems have decided to reside in my head, I will apologize first if I do. I could care less about sympathy, being patronized, or just being ridiculed for being a whiny little bitch. These are my problems. They are in my head, almost literally. I don't expect anyone to understand. Quite frankly, I'm used to people not understanding the conditions of depression and misunderstanding outbursts and rants such as this for someone being spoiled and just wanting to complain about their lives, like no one else has the same problems.
I remember one time, in high school, in American Lit, we read a short story about a boy who was afraid to go upstairs looking for his mother because he found her near lifeless body after she tried to commit suicide. This one jerk in class, and I won't name names, had the audacity to call the woman stupid because she tried to kill herself. He couldn't, or wouldn't, understand the condition, nor the affect that it has on the people close to those that suffer from it. I was so angry about this. Two years before, I tried to kill myself only to find out that I was diagnosed with major depression. I was 14 at the time.
15 years later, I find myself taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds just to try to keep myself from falling into the same pattern. I still have thoughts. I'm convinced that no medication can stop those. I still have a want to hurt myself, despite those that are close to me. Fortunately, I'm reminded everyday of why I can't. As Johnen Vasquez once wrote in one of his comics, "I just wish someone would turn me off and fix me ... I'm not happy."
What a lot of people don't understand about this condition is that this is not about feelings. There is a biochemical response that takes place every time you experience love, fear, happiness, anger, sadness. Whether it is a uptake or down take in dopamine, serotonin, adrenalin, or any number of biochemicals that affect what and how we "feel," there is a science to this. If you ever notice someone coked up usually gets happy or hyper, it's because their dopamine levels get so hiked up to the point they begin to feel this way. And when the feeling goes away, they get angry, despondent, sometimes aggressive. Their body is trying to compensate for the dramatic increase and decrease of dopamine. Why do you think they call it dope?
It is the same concept in depression. Levels of serotonin and sometimes other biochemicals seriously drop on their own. Sometimes there is an environmental trigger, sometimes there is not. Some people never learn to control their daily lives to achieve a level of "zen." Sometimes, that doesn't help at all. There are different reactions to this. Some people just need sleep. Some people just need to exercise. Some people regain their sanity by talking.
I've been there. I've done that. It worked for a while, but what happens when sleep no longer comes? What happens when you no longer have the energy to just sit up from bed? What happens when you can't will yourself to talk? Or when you don't even understand why all you want to do is cry or scream or beat the bloody crap out of something or someone, maybe even yourself? I wish I could understand why this is happening. I would love not to have to take any more meds for this, but as I have been told by numerous doctors, I will probably live the rest of my life taking meds. An Epiphany, an Epiphany, my kingdom for an Epiphany! What I wouldn't give for some self understanding right now. All I know is that I'm broken, and I want to be fixed.
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