Depression Is...

Depression is hell.

I have dealt with depression and anxiety issues since I was a teenager. It seemed, to someone on the outside looking in, strange for a person in my position to be depressed at all.

I came from a nice two parent household, my dad made decent enough money to help me finance a car when I was sixteen, I had a a decent circle of friends and good grades. I was given a small allowance for clothes and makeup and I essentially wanted for nothing even though we weren't the most well off.

No matter how nice things looked I've always had issues with feeling depressed, sometimes for no reason.

It wasn't until I was older and started regularly seeing a doctor that I learned that it is chemical. There is something off in that lovely noggin of mine that makes me have some days where I just want to sleep because my dreams always seem better than the reality that I'm living, even if the reality I am living is pretty good despite the changes I've experienced over the last five years of my life.

Depression doesn't always have a reason to rear it's ugly head.

I can wake up one morning and it's just there. 

And any plans that I may have had for that day are thrown out of the window because all I want to do is wear my fluffy footie pajamas and watch Netflix all day long. 

It can't be resolved by throwing chocolate at me and screaming "Satan has been fed" or by taking me out to do something I like. 

Depression can kill all simple pleasures in life. Even my favorite activities become monotonous and simply miserable. I want to get it through as quickly as possible and go back to my little hidey hole and sequester myself away from the rest of the world. 

Depression can actually hurt. Physically hurt. 

During my worst episodes it's not uncommon for me to ache all over like I have the flu. It's deep muscle aches, too, not just your standard take some ibuprofen and it's over ache. No amount of medicine takes it away and it makes getting anything done almost impossible. 

All you can really do is put on some comfortable clothes and hope for the best. 

And if you have other things that make you ache? Be prepared to hurt worse or have a flare. 

It makes my yet to be diagnosed gut issues flare up and causes cramps and nausea, and other side effects that are really too terrible to discuss in public without becoming a total TMI. 

I may have depression, but I am not lazy. Sometimes I have bad days. I have even worse days. I will spend a week at a time only doing the minimum of household chores because I can't bring myself to be fully productive. But that doesn't mean I'm lazy. 

I have depression but it doesn't mean that I'm a constant spoil sport. If anything, having depression and coming to terms with it has made me even more sassy and sarcastic, and it's given me the ability to throw shade and have the target not know what the hell hit them. Get me together with another person who has depression that acts like mine and we are unstoppable with the sass. I also think it can make me one freakin funny individual. 

I may have depression, but that doesn't mean that I can't function like a normal person. I'm just a little more cynical and harder to motivate on a bad day. On a good day I'll run circles around you. 

I may have issues with depression, but that doesn't make me any different. 

Most of all, depression is nothing to be ashamed of.

Mental health is a serious thing that does come with a stigma, especially if you are taking medication. I take several just to make me completely human, to balance the chemical imbalances. 

I just get really sick sometimes of the things that I've heard from others, like if you would exercise more then you'd feel much better. Balance your diet. Meditate. Think happy thoughts. 

Sometimes only medication will help, not standing on my head or doing a warrior pose while breathing through my nose. 

For those reading this and can relate, know you're not alone. 

For the past month and a half I've had a really bad low. Really bad. I haven't met some deadlines and I feel terribly bad, I just can't help it. I'm not trying to be lazy or behind or whatever, it is just the way it works when you've got an issue. All of the medications in the world won't help some of these lows. 

You're not alone and there is no harm in having to take a time out from time to time. To time. To time. To time. 

Just be you, because there is only one and that's pretty damn special in itself.