This thing about depression.
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html
I just read this. It's pretty good. I don't *quite* connect to everything in it, exactly. But some of the things definitely. Very much definitely. Especially the bits about how it feels when somebody is trying to help you not be depressed. They say all these platitudes that might even be true, but they feel like total bullshit. When the only thing you can feel is emptiness, hearing somebody try to cheer you up by talking about the good feelings you *can't feel*, it seems like, well... This sums it up pretty well.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4Nwxmdp14dw/UVoSB7N7SZI/AAAAAAAAIbc/uO68r6EHfYo/s1600/DEPRESSIONTWO45.png
The thing that resonated with me the most though was this bit:
"The problem might not even have a solution. But you aren't necessarily looking for solutions. You're maybe just looking for someone to say "sorry about how dead your fish are" or "wow, those are super dead. I still like you, though.""
That is so true. I don't talk to my friends a lot about my depression. I think many of them have no idea how very depressed I am, sometimes. I talk here about it more than anywhere else, I think. But that's because when I *do* talk about it to my friends, I can tell that they want to help. They want to offer solutions. So they try to offer solutions, only the solutions don't work. It's not a problem that can be easily solved. Maybe it can't be solved at all. So I have this horrible fear that if I keep saying I'm depressed, and they keep wanting to fix it and failing, that they'll get tired of trying, and tired of me, and tired of the way I'm depressed all the time, and will stop being my friends. And that's what keeps me from talking about it all the time. I blog about it sometimes, since it's easier to just write it to nobody in particular, but in one-on-one conversations I almost never mention it.
And then there's this part...
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-drS0smfRtIo/UWtKWq-cwyI/AAAAAAAAI-0/7NofDAulZ3Q/s1600/ADTWO32.png
Yeah.
That part.
I'm not suicidal. My personal situation makes it close to impossible. Physical suicide would also be murder, since I'd be killing my headmates as well, so I just can't. And I'm not in control of my brain enough to just will myself out of existence. One of us did that once. We even thought she succeeded for a while, and it was a little bit weird and a little bit sad, and a little bit scary too, but then she gradually came back. The same subconscious needs that had created her in the first place re-created her again.
But even though I'm not suicidal, exactly, there are days when I want to not exist. I want to go away, to stop being so that I can stop feeling the things I'm feeling. Some days there is a gaping emptiness in the middle of me, and it seems at those times like the problem is not the emptiness so much as the "me" surrounding it. If I went away, it would be so much easier.
I can't even see a doctor about it. Because honestly, what kind of reaction am I going to get to "Hi, I'm this body's imaginary friend and I kind of want to commit suicide and go away, which is what I gather you guys think is the right 'cure' for people who say they have voices living in their head anyway, but can you please help me not want to do that?" People with DID are supposed to want to integrate. People who hear voices are supposed to want the voices to go away. What kind of psychiatrist would believe we have this condition and work to perpetuate it rather than to cure it?
Hell, I guess if I really were suicidal, going to to a shrink would be the thing to do. But... I don't think the others would let me go. So I get to just soldier on somehow, and hopefully things will get better again.
Anyway, I just read that today, so I decided to talk about it a little. Hopefully I haven't been too depressing.
I just read this. It's pretty good. I don't *quite* connect to everything in it, exactly. But some of the things definitely. Very much definitely. Especially the bits about how it feels when somebody is trying to help you not be depressed. They say all these platitudes that might even be true, but they feel like total bullshit. When the only thing you can feel is emptiness, hearing somebody try to cheer you up by talking about the good feelings you *can't feel*, it seems like, well... This sums it up pretty well.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4Nwxmdp14dw/UVoSB7N7SZI/AAAAAAAAIbc/uO68r6EHfYo/s1600/DEPRESSIONTWO45.png
The thing that resonated with me the most though was this bit:
"The problem might not even have a solution. But you aren't necessarily looking for solutions. You're maybe just looking for someone to say "sorry about how dead your fish are" or "wow, those are super dead. I still like you, though.""
That is so true. I don't talk to my friends a lot about my depression. I think many of them have no idea how very depressed I am, sometimes. I talk here about it more than anywhere else, I think. But that's because when I *do* talk about it to my friends, I can tell that they want to help. They want to offer solutions. So they try to offer solutions, only the solutions don't work. It's not a problem that can be easily solved. Maybe it can't be solved at all. So I have this horrible fear that if I keep saying I'm depressed, and they keep wanting to fix it and failing, that they'll get tired of trying, and tired of me, and tired of the way I'm depressed all the time, and will stop being my friends. And that's what keeps me from talking about it all the time. I blog about it sometimes, since it's easier to just write it to nobody in particular, but in one-on-one conversations I almost never mention it.
And then there's this part...
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-drS0smfRtIo/UWtKWq-cwyI/AAAAAAAAI-0/7NofDAulZ3Q/s1600/ADTWO32.png
Yeah.
That part.
I'm not suicidal. My personal situation makes it close to impossible. Physical suicide would also be murder, since I'd be killing my headmates as well, so I just can't. And I'm not in control of my brain enough to just will myself out of existence. One of us did that once. We even thought she succeeded for a while, and it was a little bit weird and a little bit sad, and a little bit scary too, but then she gradually came back. The same subconscious needs that had created her in the first place re-created her again.
But even though I'm not suicidal, exactly, there are days when I want to not exist. I want to go away, to stop being so that I can stop feeling the things I'm feeling. Some days there is a gaping emptiness in the middle of me, and it seems at those times like the problem is not the emptiness so much as the "me" surrounding it. If I went away, it would be so much easier.
I can't even see a doctor about it. Because honestly, what kind of reaction am I going to get to "Hi, I'm this body's imaginary friend and I kind of want to commit suicide and go away, which is what I gather you guys think is the right 'cure' for people who say they have voices living in their head anyway, but can you please help me not want to do that?" People with DID are supposed to want to integrate. People who hear voices are supposed to want the voices to go away. What kind of psychiatrist would believe we have this condition and work to perpetuate it rather than to cure it?
Hell, I guess if I really were suicidal, going to to a shrink would be the thing to do. But... I don't think the others would let me go. So I get to just soldier on somehow, and hopefully things will get better again.
Anyway, I just read that today, so I decided to talk about it a little. Hopefully I haven't been too depressing.