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When 'Good Days' With Depression Terrify You

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At first, good days with depression seem like a shining light. They seem like hope. They make you wonder if that is how “normal” people go through the day.

There is nothing particularly special about good days. They are not what other people would call good days — you don’t get any amazing news, and you don’t find a hundred dollars on the sidewalk. They are just days where time passes as it’s meant to. They are days you don’t feel like crying for no reason and it’s easy to breathe.

The problem with good days is that the better they seem, the more they scare you. When you have lived with depression for a long time, you know better than to trust good days. You know they only last so long and then you wake up and the depression is back. The weight on your chest has returned. The constant feeling of dread is within you and you can’t seem to shake it. Good days are like a tease, a glimpse into how life was before that dark menace that is depression entered your life. Good days pass by and they make you question if and when you will have another. They intensify your envy of others — those people who might not appreciate their normal days, the ones who might not know what the darkness feels like.

I now spend my good days wondering when it will all disappear. They are no longer truly good days because I am just waiting for it to all come crashing down. It is like standing in a silent room waiting to hear a pin drop. You know the sound is coming but you have to stay very still to hear it. You are expecting a tiny sound. The good day has clouded your judgment and made you forget the darkest depths of depression. You wait so patiently so you don’t miss its return. But when it does return it’s not a whisper but rather a scream. Instead of a pin drop it’s a bomb. Good days do not end gently; instead they plunge you back into the deep black well.

When the good day ends you wonder if it was ever really there.

Follow this journey on TranQool.

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Thinkstock photo via pecaphoto77

Originally published: March 22, 2017
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