TRIGGER AND CONTENT WARNING: THEMES OF SUICIDAL IDEATION AND SELF-HARM
My depression is like a tone-deaf, charismatic siren.
My depression is like a comforting hug given on a damp and sweaty morning.
My depression is like my ex. Degrading me when I’m around, only to plead for me to stay when I try to leave.
Let me try to explain a bit better. My depression is my worst enemy - sworn at birth to upend me and to haunt my waking steps.
It is also, at times, my only friend. The only honest voice in my life because it’s willing to tell me truths about myself, no matter how much it might hurt my feelings. My depression wants me to be stronger in my resolve with people, by allowing me to see that I simply don’t need them. My depression wants me to take more control in my life, by letting me realize how easy it would be to take my life.
Our relationship is hard to understand, I know. Trust me, it’s far from ideal. But still, my depression is there for me morning, noon or night - through blue skies and grey skies - whether I want it’s company, or not. You can’t beat that kind of consistency!
My depression covertly twists my shoulders until the bones contort, leans in close, and feeds me lines to say when I start to openly talk about it.
I smile, nod, recite the lines as told and ignore the pain.
•
In the spring of 2015 I started going to therapy for the first time. I was a couple of months away from going through with a meticulously planned suicide attempt for my 25th birthday when at the last minute, I randomly sought help. With a series of unexpected deaths and abusers, Depression willed fear, self-harm and loathing. I raced head-on towards my sacrifice thinking that it was my fate.
Unknowingly to me at the time, Depression and I actually had this date marked on the calendar well before I even realized it. You see, Depression quickly became my fast-friend in grade school and started grooming me at the vulnerable age of 11. As a picked-on favorite by bullies and teachers alike, my strongest memories of 4th grade is staring at an old oak tree in my childhood backyard and seeing morose glimpses of my body rocking deftly against the branches. Images of my ashen skin strung up high over the world; silently swaying by rope over the ground and leaves in the light breeze. Still and twisting with a sullen gaze stamped on my tiny black face; small shadows, lost in the bare creaking tree limbs. The bloated body that I hated so much, highlighted and framed by the bright blue sky and searing sun.
The imposing mental images were so real and vivid - they played on a continuous loop like a sadistic memory. I would desperately rub my eyes like a child trying to wipe a bad night’s dream away. Trying in vain to erase the images from in front of me. The longer I would stare at the tree the louder the urge would be to either make the thoughts stop or, to fulfill them. Apparently, this was suicidal ideation.
And that’s when I first heard Depression.
You can have peace, if you wanted. You could be less of a burden to everyone, if you wanted. You could finally be happy and stop it all.
It assured me that I could end my pain by simply ending myself, and so my kid logic quickly learned that if I stayed perfectly still, didn’t move or act on any thoughts, the images would eventually subside. The thoughts turn lazy. The monsters would get bored and go elsewhere with their candied promises.
Hours everyday spent on trying to avoid certain thoughts and act “normal”. Days every week spent on trying to keep myself from listening to Depressions siren song. I admit, it all worked for a little while, until Depression grew and started to make unsavory new friends in Anxiety and, eventually, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). All three soon took turns in breaking me down until I became less resistant to their presence.
Eventually, I stopped thinking twice about the hissing thoughts because I became consumed by them; caressed by their thorns. By the time I entered high school I knew more random facts about cyanide, violent deaths and lynchings than any teen should know. Countless online searches about suicide motivated by Depressions crushing curiosity, lined my mind and inspired my self-hate.
Corroded by my own acidity, Depression and I started to look and sound identical. Everyone would mistake us for each other. The differentiations were so minor that I started to forget who was who. We both would answer by my name and I lived convinced that I was the embodiment of it.
We were reflected in each other’s image.
Depression and I learned their real name years later.
Major Depressive Disorder.
I decided to call it just, Depression, with a big ‘D’ out of respect for how destructive its made life.
••
My soft eyed, firm voice of a therapist looks back at me with a comforting expression. She patiently listens to me stammer out a story about an ex violently attacking me and hands me a tissue as my eyes begin to flood. I’m starting to deeply sob. I tell her how I’ve started cutting. I tell her that I’ve started making myself throw up again. I tell her that I can’t handle being at such a low point in my life.
I make the mistake by mentioning that I’m planning to kill myself on my 25th birthday. For years I’ve told no one about my plan. For years I schemed for this day and like a fool, I snitch on myself right when I’m at the finish line.
I start feeling stupid about my blubbering and start to apologize.
Your issues are your own - you’re not the only one who has problems. How moronic of you to waste time talking to someone who you’re paying to care. Shut up. Go home. Grab the razor blade. Shut up. Go home.
Thoughts start to form about gleaming steel. Brief images flash of me in my apartment bathroom with a straight edge to my wrist. I can almost feel the blood pool from my veins and for a second, I think that I can taste mercury. All I see is smeared red stains and all I can hear is my mom crying over my casket.
I stop talking. I stop moving. I stare forward as if I’m watching the horrific scene being played out in front of me. Forced to witness what hasn’t happened yet. Tears haphazardly leap from my face. My mind is uncontrollably stabbing itself and I’m psychologically forced to feel it all. I can’t hide from these intense thoughts. The monster has found me.
You can have peace, if you wanted. You could be less of a burden to everyone, if you wanted. You could finally be happy and stop it all.
In the few seconds it takes for me to go silent, my therapist looks me over. She sees that my face has grown dark; shoulders have drawn upwards and that my words are becoming jagged. After a pleading SOS flashes across my eyes, without missing a beat my therapist tells me that my journey has been hard and that I deserved to be loved. That I don’t need to apologize for Depression because I am not Depression. My name is not Depression. Depression is a mask - not my skin.
Depression and I don’t know how to take that information.
We talk about what my identity looks like without Depression and I cry because I don’t know. I can’t remember such a time.
We talk about “self worth” and I shudder because I realize that I don’t know what those words mean to me. I’ve never talked about my worth openly before. The words feel alien and I learn the word disassociation.
We go over a long list of different emotions and I shut down because it dawns on me, that I’ve only ever truly felt negative/sad emotions. I start to muse about what joy feels like and feel vacant.
You deserve nothing.
Like a computer crashing, my thoughts start to freeze and my harddrive of emotions rapidly start to erase. I turn inarticulate, listless and clumsy. The system is overloaded.
The more I want to continue talking to my therapist, the more Depression claws at my throat and smothers the words. Before I realize it, my emotions are encased in a thick glass that I can only see - not touch. I feel nothing. I’m now a spectator in my own therapy session. My punishment for trying to expose and escape my abuser.
You deserve nothing…
•••
Eventually months slip by and so too my 25th birthday. I spend that day with my therapist on speed dial while I get a tattoo to signify my reluctant celebration of life. A cross to represent the weight placed on my hunched shoulders.
It will take years before I stop mourning the day that I didn’t kill myself.
Pinned to the closet wall in my apartment are lists of detailed emotions and symptoms of depression. Written on my bathroom mirror are positive affirmations and bible verses set to catch my gaze for when spirits start to wander. Hidden in my kitchen cabinet are fully stocked mental health aids, ready for me on the daily. Little scattered reminders to keep me in the present, I’m now ready to confront Depression for when it arrives.
Seven years into therapy and I’ve since pieced together parts of my emotional personality. Feelings and expressions never felt before start to flood my mind and soothe me.
I’ve since learned the word serotonin.
I’ve since learned how to acknowledge when my serotonin starts to get low.
The glimpses of mental peace wash over my spirit as the poison slowly scrubs off. The tune of the siren becomes less shrill. For the first time in my life, I start to think that the most humane thing for me to do, is plan for a future where I actually might be a part of it. I invest a bit more in relationships since longevity might exist somewhere.
Depression, never one to be completely defeated, slinks to the shadows of my mind and readies itself for whenever I become too vulnerable. Sometimes still, it terrorizes by rallying Anxiety and PTSD for a blind assault.
I’ve come to the conclusion that although Depression may be with me for the rest of my life and may be the cause of my eventual demise - that does not mean that it gets to have all of the power. Beneath it’s parasitic latch is a person who is capable of feeling and enjoying (no matter how rare) joy, happiness and love. And in those glimpse of refreshing dew lives hope that I can experience this world without the tarnished lenses of this disability.
Brandishing my battle scars with Depression, each night I remind myself of the same truth. To exist is to experience pain, but to experience joy is to exist.
Lucy Dupont is an avid traveler, cultural lover and explorer of the connection between the mind and body.
If you or someone you know is suicidal or in emotional distress, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255). Trained crisis workers are available to talk 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your confidential and toll-free call goes to the nearest crisis center in the Lifeline national network. These centers provide crisis counseling and mental health referrals.
If you live in Illinois: The Call4Calm program launched by the Human Services Mental Health Division provides residents wanting to speak to a mental health care professional. For this free service you can text the word “TALK” to 552020.
Cover Photo: Gustavo Perg