Sin.cerelychaotic

The progression of the depression cloud is when, suddenly, what feels like a moving storm cloud begins to overcome your body.

You can see your friends and everyone you know in the sun on the outside, looking happy and smiling, and you know that if maybe you just reached out, something as simple as asking a friend to get together that maybe it would probably help. But instead, you isolate. Because when you’re depressed you start thinking you deserve to feel that way, like it’s some kind of karma, like you’re worthless.

You don’t just isolate, you push away the people who love you the most. You ghost texts. You stop answering calls. Not because you don’t care about them, but because you don’t want them to see you hurting. You don’t want to become another burden in their lives or make them hurt because you’re hurting. It feels easier to disappear than to let the people you love watch you fall apart.

Sometimes it even feels easier to isolate or spend time with random people you barely know than to be with the people who truly love you. Strangers don’t know you’re struggling. They don’t see the sadness behind your smile, and they can’t tell that you’re not yourself. Around them, you can pretend you’re okay for a little while without feeling exposed.

Ironically, most people can’t even tell you’re depressed. You’re the life of the party. You’re the entertainment. You’re the one making everyone laugh because seeing other people smile gives you a momentary escape from what you’re carrying. If everyone else is laughing then maybe for a second you can forget that you’re hurting. So people assume you’re okay, never realizing you’re quietly falling apart inside.

So you talk yourself out of reaching for help in the sunlight, where all your friends stand. Sometimes you even surround yourself with people who make you feel worse, who seem to confirm all that self-hate that you already feel for yourself.

Eventually, it feels like the cloud has lifted because you stop crying and stop feeling sad but it’s not necessarily because you’re better, it’s because you’re numb. You don’t feel anything anymore. And when you can’t feel anything, suddenly you start chasing adrenaline. You look for anything that might make you feel alive again which includes taking risks, staying constantly busy or making impulsive decisions….not because they’re fun, but because feeling anything is better than feeling nothing at all. You crave the feeling to simply feel.

People check in. “Hey, are you okay? I haven’t seen you.” And you say, “I’m fine. I’m good.” All the same. Maybe even crack a joke or two. Because, at first, compared to the heaviness the numbness that comes after the sadness actually feels like relief.

Then one day, you realize you haven’t brushed your hair in days. The laundry is overflowing. You’ve been eating like garbage. There’s dishes left in the sink over night. You’re still wearing the same sweatpants. You go to sleep with your alarm set, but deep down you don’t really care whether you wake up.

And that’s when you realize you’re not fine. You’re severely depressed.

And if you’re reading this from underneath your own storm cloud, I hope you know you are not alone. You don’t have to carry the weight of the storm on your own.

While the storm cloud can feel like it’ll never lift it eventually does and the sun will be there on the other side waiting for you.