The Daily Cycle of Someone With Depression

You wake up in your bedroom with a horrible feeling within your chest. Is it anxiety, depression or both this time? You lie there, contemplating if you should get up and face the world and yourself, or if you should go back to sleep where you don’t have to feel anything. Some days you choose the sleep, but today you chose to try the fight again and face the world with that small ounce of hope that it will be different today.

As you stare into the mirror, your features slowly become unrecognizable. You tilt your head one way, then the other, and within your eyes you see you but it isn’t you.

You feel like crying, sometimes, because you miss yourself. This person you see is not you, and you don’t know where you went. Sometimes, you don’t cry at all, but just continue to stare because you have become numb to it all.

In both situations, you simply wish for happiness, but the thought is unfathomable.

You try and talk to people as the day goes on, but the more you do, the more your smiles drain and hurt you. As people talk, you battle yourself with words like “focus,” or “I can’t do this, my heart can’t handle this.”

The worst conversations are with the ones you love the most. They either know you are struggling but feel hopeless to help you, or they are not even aware you are hurting. You want to love them so bad and embrace them with the happiness you desire and they deserve, but your heart won’t let you “burden” them with your depression.

You go home, and it is an entirely different feat in itself, depending on where you come from.

For some, your family is always arguing with one another, and it seems as though no one is happy. For others, you go unnoticed and ignored as you feel unloved.

Maybe you feel as though they are the keystone of the household, and the burden of keeping everyone happy is on the weight of their shoulders. Maybe your family loves you but doesn’t understand your depression.

Whatever it is, the heartache is unbearable, and you either go through the motions with numbness or a constant feeling of sobbing at any moment.

Showers are a time of reflection and sorrow for those who live with depression. You are in your most vulnerable state. As you emerge yourself in the water, you let the water continue to run, so no one can hear you cry. Then, you lie there feeling even more numb than you were when you were dry.

Nighttime comes. Even though your body can finally rest from being drained throughout the day, your thoughts emerge clearer and more potent at this time. So many nights, you have cried into that pillow so no one could hear you. So many nights you just stared aimlessly to your dark ceiling, and maybe you had so many thoughts racing that you couldn’t think of anything.

Some nights you crash and others you lie awake, waiting till tomorrow, to start the cycle over once more.