What Do I Have To Be Depressed About?

Looking at my life, nothing.

I have nothing to be depressed about, yet there it is.

Angie, you suck.

Oh, yeah. That.

For the first time, I see it there. I recognize it lying to me. My inner monologue that tells me I suck.

The me who isn’t me that tells me I’m unloved. It tells me that my own friends don’t like me. It tells me that I’m not funny, that everything I say is wrong, that everything I work at being successful is a failure. It puts me in a very self-centered mindset to where I believe there is a conspiracy against me.

There was split second last night when I was alone in the living room, wallowing in self-pity because everything I do is wrong and everyone can see all of my faults, where I realized it wasn’t true.

It’s not true that everything I touch fails. It’s not true that people say negative things about me. It’s not true that if my life were a kickball game, I’d always be the last one chosen.

That’s the cloud of depression and anxiety.

If you suffer from depression and anxiety, you know the cloud. You know the haze in which your brain lives for the duration.

But you may not realize that the you who isn’t you, your inner monologue, is lying to you.

And then there’s the shame of the chemical imbalance.

How embarrassing is it to realize that your own mind is telling you that what you knew to be true is no longer? There is shame in admitting that there is an inner monologue going on that you can’t control.

“You can’t control your own thoughts?”

Not when you don’t realize it’s happening.

You can’t control the negativity, the worthlessness, the thoughts of inadequacy if you don’t realize it’s the depression cloud.

No amount of encouraging words from others or hearing “snap out of it” or “what do you have to be depressed about?” can help. Why? Because the depression LIES.

The depression LIES and tells you that those people trying (in their own way) to help you, that your own friends and family are lying to you. It lies and tells you that everyone else is better than you at everything. It lies and tells you that you’re not good enough.

But that’s not you.

And until that moment when you and I and everyone who suffers realizes that it’s the chemical imbalance causing your brain to lie to you, it cannot be overcome.

For the first time, I had that realization. I had an a-ha moment of clarity exactly at the point when it was telling me that one of my friends was out to get me and prove me wrong.

But it wasn’t true.

The cloud was making me think that it was true. This one particular feeling of inadequacy wasn’t the catalyst for this bout, but I knew it had been coming. I started to realize that I had thoughts of staying in bed all day, not working, and letting all of my hard work of getting to where I am go to waste.

The combination of money struggles to having my credit card number stolen to having trouble maintaining a work schedule to heart palpitations to learning of other’s divorces to hearing of tragedy. All of it became the combined catalyst.

For me, realizing the depression is there is the first step to working hard to overcome it from getting worse.

I have to step back, look around me, recognize what I know to be true, and open myself to positive thoughts and receiving the positivity from friends, family, and others as being the truth.

That plus not forgetting to take my happy-crazy meds, will pull me through this bout.

All of that and these two:

Tagged as: anxiety, depression, sucks