Column by Jaylene Davis, staff writer
It’s like a weighted layer over my body pulling me down some days. Some days, it’s the overwhelming feeling as if I need to cry constantly.
And some days, it’s me feeling nothing, staring into nothingness. I’m just numb.
Depression affects people in many ways, but for everyone struggling with it, depression makes it a challenge to live everyday life.
At my worst, things ceased to matter to me. The grades that I worked for, for years suddenly didn’t matter anymore, and my missing assignments piled up because, of course, my will to work was gone along with my will to live.
It could have been something in my brain, like my level of emotions was turned all the way up or maybe I was simply overreacting because of the circumstances.
But it is one thing for sure; life seemed unbearable most of the time and everything seemed like a huge, undoable challenge.
The weight of school quickly piled up around me and I lost hope in trying. Sometimes, I wondered to myself what was the point of trying if I didn’t think I was going to make it through the year. It sounds depressing to some people to think that, but for people like me, it was an everyday reality.
Over time, my depression felt like another skin. The weight making me want to curl into a ball was an every-day, all-the-time feeling, and the depressive thoughts in my head became normalized. Being depressed was just who I was and hope about things ever getting better ended. I felt as though this was how I would feel for the rest of my life, and the only thing I could do was silently suffer.
To me, this is the worst part of depression: when it takes over one’s life and one eventually gets used to it and accepts that she’s going to be depressed forever. One thinks at this point that depression is just her life, wanting to die is just her everyday experience, and feeling overly emotional or completely numb is normal, but it’s not.
Eventually, over time, I noticed other people’s lives and how they seemed much happier than me and realized that I didn’t want to be stuck in this state anymore.
I learned through many different (some bad and some good) coping skills that the best way to get myself through my depression is connections.
Connections can have different meanings to everyone, and that’s why it works so well on varying degrees of depression. The main reason is that a big part of being depressed is feeling alone, and working on not feeling completely alone combats depression’s symptoms.
I helped my depression over the course of a few years by getting connections and finding relations between my symptoms and others.
I found that even though I have to be physically alone sometimes, I am never truly alone with my emotions, and I always have at least a few people who will understand.
That idea has always been comforting to me and gives me hope that others and I can grow to be happier individuals over time.
With connections, the bad times can get better and the good times can get even better.
Connections can be family, friends or even a therapist. But the most important piece is that someone finds a connection where one feels comfortable enough to open up about their emotions.
It is also important that the connection can help both people relate to one another about their alike troubles. This is how connections help people feel less alone, which then helps people get through their battle with support.
Looking back, I am sure this method is working because I went from not caring about myself or anything to trading in my bad coping skills for a helpful one, connecting with others.
Although finding connections amidst feeling depressed is not a cure-all, it does make a difference in making life more worth living.
Because fighting depression alone is like batting a 10-foot dragon alone (not very easy).
November 14 2019
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