To Get Up, or Not to Get Up — The Battle I Face Every Day

When my alarm goes off at 7 a.m., the ringing is replaced shortly thereafter with the sound of my boyfriend telling me “good morning,” and gently waking me up. When this happens, I always have the same hopeful thought — Today, I’m gonna do it. Today, I’ll be able to will myself out of bed, to finish the too-long list of things I need to accomplish and feel like I’m going somewhere in life. Even if that place is just one step forward. But I usually don’t follow through on that hope. I accomplish it slightly more often now, with my wonderful boyfriend and encouraging roommate to push me out of the house… but even so, it’s not enough to make me feel like I’m making any actual progress in life.

Because the truth of the matter is this: even if I wake up at 7 in the morning, and try to mentally prepare myself for life, it’s probably not going to happen. I’ll probably stick to what has over the past year become my routine:

1. I tell my boyfriend I’m on my way to school and to text me later.

2. Turn the sound off on my phone and lay back down.

3. Give myself 1000 reasons why this action is OK, and that yes, it is better to lie to the person you love most than to just get the fuck up.

4. Promptly fall back asleep to make up for all the hours lost to insomnia the night before.

5. Wake up at 3 p.m.

6. Brush teeth? Hair? Maybe. Depends on the day.

7. Go outside to get food and marvel at how little money I have (due to the fact I have no job…)

8. Possibly go to school for the small amount of time that I can, seeing as it’s now 4:30 p.m. and the last lecture of the day is at 5.

9. Regret the decision I weakly made this morning. Which was probably the same one as I’d made yesterday.

10. Go home and tell everyone what a great, normal day I had, even though the most exciting part was probably cleaning the fake-tan spill off the bathroom floor, or doing my laundry.

11. Start to drink. Because when in doubt, drown your problems out, right? Wrong.

It’s much more difficult to accomplish things when your average wake up time is 3 p.m. and everything closes between 4 and 6.

Because this is depression, folks. For me, this is what depression looks like: a lazy, lying, tired girl who gets out of bed mid afternoon and drinks herself into oblivion. It looks like forgotten dreams and piles of excuses. It looks like guilt. It looks like embarrassment. It looks like someone who honestly doesn’t care about her life.

But this is me telling you I do care. That when I lie, or fail, it hurts me. That when I have to look at my life and what I’ve done to it, I am so ashamed of myself it makes me want to run away from everyone who knows me. That I am sorry to anyone I hurt when I’m at my most confused.

Please try to understand. I don’t want to be this person. If I really had a choice, do you think I’d be here, in bed, writing another elaborate excuse for my failings, or do you think I’d be out there reaching my goals?

Now is the part where I have to say I’m going to keep working at it. Harder even than I am now… and I will. Seriously. Just, like, tomorrow. I’ll start tomorrow.

You know I don’t have the energy today.

If you or someone you know needs help, visit our suicide prevention resources page.

If you need support right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text “START” to 741-741.

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Thinkstock photo via KatarzynaBialasiewicz