What the Voices of My Anxiety and Depression Tell Me at 3 A.M.

“You’re so useless.”

“You got nothing done today.”

“Could you be a worse friend?”

“Call them. Tell them to leave you. They deserve better.”

I am sitting in my bed, the couch I have been sleeping on since I moved to Boise; the voices of my anxiety and my depression are getting loud again. Sad music has been turned on to try to drown my own thoughts out. Usually, it helps. Feelings of uselessness and despair are completely overwhelming me as I struggle to find rest. Nothing eases it. Every attempt is met with still more self-loathing. Two days now. I have felt so sapped by my depression that I have gotten almost nothing done. My family is growing impatient with me — calling up memories of me before I really got any help at all and I was so much worse than I am now.

“They are never going to hear you.”

“You are never going to be OK again.”

“They are only going to assume it is your fault.”

“There is no hope. You are always going to be like this.”

The noise just keeps flooding my thoughts. I with they would somehow understand that I am not “lazy,” or “unwilling” — but that I am sick. It is the same as any physical illness. I am so numb it hurts. It hurts my muscles, nerves, bones, eyes, nose, teeth, mind, soul, relationships, and anything it can bring pain to. It’s almost akin to being clasped in on by a massive breaker at the ocean’s edge, only instead of being able to roll with the blow and float back to shore, I am chained and cemented to the very place I am standing. I feel as though I am bearing the full brunt of every pound of force the wave has to exert on me… and I am feeble.

“Just give up.”

“Run away from all this.”

“You are not worthy of them.”

My skin is clammy, and I have adjusted the thermostat a dozen times in an effort to find comfort. All of my hair is standing on end because I keep pulling it and running fingers through it. I desperately wish I had someone to curl up against and to cry on and to tell all of this to. Yet here I am, telling it to you. Telling you all of my pitiful thoughts. In a mere three hours, I will have been awake for a full day’s time, and I am nowhere near tired. Instead, I am wide awake, panicked and miserable.

“What were you thinking? You’ll never fit in here.”

“You are literally failing at everything.”

“Nothing about you warrants compassion or affection.”

And there I am again, twisting in my own sweat. Hating every part of this illness — and of myself. I believe my family when they berate me for laziness and slacking off. Those thoughts embed themselves in my mind and echo until I can hear nothing else but them. It is literal torture. And what’s worse, no one seems to care when I am in this headspace. I know they do. It is just a fact. Yet, all I perceive is them hating me for being so chronically ill, with diseases that don’t seem to have any physical symptoms or valid inputs. Genuinely, it feels as if having the distinction of my illness being “mental” instead of “physical” means I am not valid in having it.

In case you were wondering, this is what my illnesses are like at 3 in the morning.

Image via Contributor.

Follow this journey on The Little Tea Lady.

We want to hear your story. Become a Mighty contributor here.