Depression: The account of a boy with no problems

Foreword: To those of you who are about to read this and think to themselves: “You’re a rich, white, cis, man – you have no right to complain!”; I agree with you and you’re part of the problem.

It took me until coronavirus happened to realise that not everyone spends ¼ to 1/3 of every month feeling empty and the rest of it fearing the moment when that emptiness will strike from the blue. I am writing this piece because I’ve been mildly depressed for at least 10 years now. I don’t curl up into a ball on my bed and fail to function for days on end (often), I’ve never attempted suicide, though I have contemplated it an awful lot and overall I lead a pretty uninhibited life. In short – I have it easy and I still feel the need to spend 2000 perfectly good words whining about it. Many don’t and it’s for them that I write.

I want to explore the little, everyday indignities of my depression and how they have piled up to make a significant part of my being, the ways I have failed myself and have been failed by those closest to me when trying to deal with it and what could perhaps be done better. I’m an incredibly unhealthy person who has failed to make himself better, so do not take this as an all-purpose self-help guide, rather read it as the experience of one idiot boy that could perhaps show you a truth or two about yourself.

The first and most common indignity is the inability to feel. I have spent long swathes of my life feeling void. In and of itself it’s a disgruntling feeling, as it saps the small joys of the everyday of their invigorating spirit, yet hardly a game-breaker as I can still follow along with my inane routines. The real issue comes from the way it influences my communication with others. The lack of feeling is not only a wonderful defence mechanism that gets triggered whenever I feel threatened with any sort of emotional trauma, making me terrible at responding appropriately to emotionally charged situations, but also something that is very hard to communicate to another person, especially a close one. My inability to explain exactly why it is that sending a simple “I can’t talk today, don’t feel good” text feels like climbing a mountain some days has caused a lot of strife in various relationships. A lot of our closest people feel (somewhat understandably) entitled to our time and attention, and when you are unable to provide them without a good reason for why these things are denied them, they tend to be angry.

This brings me to the next point – the feeling of inadequacy. My depression has always been very deeply linked to my lack of self-worth. When I end up hurting someone I care for it makes me feel like a failure, which only deepens the depression incapacitating me. There is no reason for me to feel bad, yet I do, yet if I do in fact try to do something about it by taking the time I need for myself I am guilted into feeling like a bad person, which in turn gives me a reason to feel bad, thus deepening the depression. However if I am to sink even further into myself  at this point the cycle would repeat, so my only choices become to pretend I am fine and put myself in a situation where I am denied the chance to rest and heal while giving a half-hearted performance of normalcy which only makes those around me even less happy or alternatively burrow in and sever a connection completely, hoping that I will not lose them for good. Depression makes one feel bad enough already, without them being told that they are a failure just for feeling depressed. It’s not a choice to “just not be depressed!”. It’s the kind of thing that takes effort, time and a safe environment where one can grow and change positively, by the smallest increments, without being derided for needing the time and space in the first place. Please understand that we are doing our best.

Thus a perfect segway into the next point arises – We are doing our best! “Man up” is a phrase I despise with such fervour that I can’t even express it, and I pride myself on my incessant and colourful swearing. The gendered nature of the phrase, the patronising tone it seems one is legally obliged to say it in, the sheer failure to understand and unwillingness to listen that it demonstrates sicken me. It is a phrase that fails to see the core of the problem that depression poses – I am trying my best and my best is not enough. We live in a capitalist society based entirely around the idea that if you try hard enough you can reach the skies! “If you’re failing at life, it’s your own fault, you aren’t putting in the work that those who succeed are, you deserve your place, maggot!” That’s the thought process that I and all the others who have experienced similar things must deal with. It’s a thought process so deeply embedded in our society that it causes us to devalue our own experiences! I have serious self-esteem issues because of it! I constantly feel like I’m not doing enough, not working hard enough, not taking on enough extra-curriculars, not engaging with as many people as I could or in as many artistic endeavours as everyone else is. Obviously social media exacerbates this issue a thousand-, no a million-fold, as we are constantly shown other people demonstrating their talent and their achievements, but the thing to realise is that what we aren’t shown are the hurdles we have to go through to get to those achievements. Two months into the pandemic a friend told me “I finally understand what people with depression have to deal with” and it struck me immensely. The thought that not everyone has to spend a quarter to a third of every month feeling utterly empty or hating themselves with a passion, while spending the rest of the time dreading the next wave of numbness, was absurd to me! Some people just wake up and go about their day I guess! Apparently it isn’t a struggle for some to shave whenever they need to, or change their clothes, or get out of bed and go for a run! The thing that a lot of conversations with people who aren’t depressed seem to lead to is – you just need to man up and work on getting less depressed. But the answer that isn’t given, because we are too scared and weak to give it is that we are manning up! Every single fucking day we wake up and go to lectures and don’t cry. We wash the dishes, even though we want nothing more than to curl up and sleep. We slap on a smile and hang around our friends because saying that you’re feeling depressed is not a fair excuse to “not have fun”. Our achievements seem like less, because showing just how high our hurdles are is impossible. So never feel like you’re failing. Doing your best looks different for everyone, so feel proud of yourself for what you do achieve. I spent 2 months living in a room where the trash piled up so high on the floor I couldn’t open my door correctly and I felt incapable of watering the plants on my windowsill as I watched them wilt day by day. It was sad and disgusting, but there was a quiet pride in how clean I kept my desk, even if it meant allowing the trash to overflow on the floor. All victories count – it’s the effort to achieve them that determines their size, not how impressive others deem them.

The last point I want to make is about support networks and how they should be done. The only reason I am even here is because I had a single friend who I could tell anything at the worst moment. All it takes to keep a person alive is one other willing to listen, to truly try and understand. However, if you are in such a position where you are supporting a person with this sort of problem you have to be aware of the unbalanced power dynamic that is established. Talking openly about your depression is an absurdly difficult thing. Not only do you already feel unworthy, but more often than not your feelings are dismissed as being dramatic and absurd, not an actual problem, but a desperate bid for attention. This is also exacerbated by the sheer amount of knowledge we possess through social media. I don’t feel comfortable being depressed when I do indeed have everything life could offer laid out on a platter before me! What right do I have to be unhappy? That’s the kind of self-sabotage that we have to go through as a first step. For men specifically the idea of opening up is a terrifying one due to the “Man up!” culture still surrounding mental health. Being weak is not manly. It doesn’t matter how many times you’re told that sort of ideology is stupid, demeaning or wrong, it’s something so deeply embedded in most men, even in our oh-so-enlightened generation, that the mere idea of admitting that you need help, you need someone to listen without interrupting, you want to be heard and held and loved, is unimaginably terrifying. I know I personally can hardly talk about my own issues without demeaning them, turning it into a joke or making the other person speak about their own struggles in an attempt to distract them from how vulnerable and scared I feel when I share. Putting that sort of power into another person’s hand is something we are told we must NEVER do, and it is an instinct that becomes very hard to shake once learned. That is why I think it’s important to say that if you do have the privilege of hearing someone bare their heart in a full and honest manner, recognize the occasion as a privilege and do your best to understand, as opposed to feeling self-righteous or attacked. Above all, if someone is not ready to share, to bare their neck like that, then be understanding – vulnerability is something we are taught is a weakness and it takes a lot for a person to become close enough that we can trust them not to exploit that weakness. That is why so many men still feel uncomfortable with going to therapy or using medication. That would be a public admittance of weakness and that is no easy feat.

In closing I want to say this – I recognize that this is a personal account that may not apply to many people and I don’t particularly care. The fact is that it may apply to some and if it does then I believe it is worth talking about and working to change it. If only one person feels a connection or learns a better way to treat themselves and those they love by reading this then it’ll have done it’s job. Secondly I recognize that a lot of what I talked about is based on unhealthy thought-patterns, on toxic conceptions of masculinity, of self-worth and so much more that need to be fundamentally changed. I don’t think this is in detriment to what I’m trying to say here. Some men unfortunately still get raised with these toxic ideologies surrounding them on all sides, and so incredibly many people have to deal with poor conceptions of self-worth. We are indeed sick, but just like any other virus, it is not a thing we chose, but rather a misfortune we must suffer and one which does not make us any less worthy of care and acceptance than any other disease does. Be kind to yourselves, be kind to each other, recognize that your experience could be entirely different from that of another and that there is a lot to gain by learning from those different to yourself. 

A closing message to anyone who may know me personally: If you got this far, I’m sorry if I ever hurt you and I hope that this has given you a slightly better understanding of why I may have. Depression is no excuse for being a right bastard, but hopefully it can clarify the toxic thought processes that contributed to the way I treated you. Thank you for allowing me to be vulnerable. Now go and do the same for someone else.