Depression: The Invisible Prison

I used to wish for cancer. 

Pray for it, even, which is a backwards thing for an agnostic to do...but then, no godly person could get away with praying for death. 

I would hear these stories of wonderful, beloved people being robbed of their futures, happily-ever-after with their partners, the chance to see their children grow up....
...and you know what I felt? Envy. 

I was jealous that these people got a free ticket out of this house of horrors - and didn't even WANT it - while I was being forced to stay against my will. 

I know; sickening.

And because it's such a twisted and disgusting thought process, I would feel immense guilt over it. I was ashamed to be frittering away my existence with suffering, while others who actually *wanted* their lives and their family and their friends - who could actually enjoy being here - would not be allowed to stay.   

The guilt may have had less to do with my perverse death wish than the fact that I was not living the life I had been given; I was wasting it.

One day after the next, I wallowed in the cesspool of depression, rejecting life. I would walk by this poem I had pasted on my fridge: "I Will Not Die an Unlived Life" and feel horrible about how horrible my life was, because that is a depressed brain does.

I was reminded of all of this today when reading a paradoxical post by Adam Alvarado at The Last Broken Home: What a [Death Row Inmate] Can Teach You About Being Yourself -

"We can piss away one more day being angry, and vengeful, and sad – about crap that’s gone by, and passed by, and no longer a part of ourselves or our future. Another day being afraid of so much, and hurt by so much, and less than our better selves because of it."

Isn't that exactly what I did for 5 years?

I may as well have been in prison. 

Hell, there IS no worse prison than our own minds. We sit there suffering day after day, waiting for someone to come let us out...only to find out one day that the door was never even locked.

A friend of mine once blogged at "The Invisible Prison" (which she has since taken down, much to my dismay). There couldn't be a more fitting metaphor for suicidal depression. From the outside, no one can glean any possible reason for this self-imposed sentence. There are no bars, no chains, no guards...

...yet we're not so much afraid that door will never open; we're afraid that it WILL, and we'll have to face the world once again.

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Life is pain, and other life lessons from House.

"LIFE is pain!  I wake up every morning, I'm in pain.  I go to work in pain.  You know how many times I wanted to just give up, how many times I've thought about ending it?"  -- Dr. Gregory House

It's not common for me to cry when I watch House, but something about that scene last Monday shook me in its familiarity.  I've had that rage for the greater part of four years.  Truly, you don't know what pain will do to you until it seizes hold of your life. 

But what enrages House in this scene is not his own despair, rather the notion that his cancer-stricken best friend is entitled to resign himself to death.  Which begs the question, whose life is it?  Do we owe our suffering to the people around us, if it means they can keep us around for their own benefit? 

There are certainly days (and weeks, and years) that I wasn't sticking around for my own sake, which implies that a part of me DOES feel obligated to endure my own circumstances to prevent the heartbreak of my loved ones.  Intellectually, however, I'm not sure that we owe anybody anything. 

The show's upcoming termination sucks.  Our society needed his character.  The endless drip of self-affirmative "Think Positive" -esque books and shows and slogans has dulled us into fake-a** shells.  Seems kind of backwards that ultra-positivity is cultivating sickness.  We don't even know WHAT we feel anymore, because we're not ALLOWED to feel it.  Give me some cynicism, sarcasm, and pessimism any day over plastered-on smiles. 

I remember when Jon Stewart had Barbara Ehrenreich on The Daily Show to discuss her book, "Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America."  Ehrenreich scoffs at how you can't even get away with 'negativity' if you have cancer ... it's so true!  People will demand hope of you, with an insistence that you don't wallow, but rather remain ever-optimistic, with a mind-over-matter mentality.  So really, your average, ordinary breed of daily whining is intolerable. 

I know I definitely feel that my actual emotions are not acceptable to others.  If they were, I probably wouldn't have to write them here.  I probably wouldn't have to write a blog about suicide, because I probably wouldn't have become suicidal in the first place.  And I probably wouldn't have to write, period, because society would instead endorse open communication that accepts, rather than denies, all that is part of the human experience.   

“You’re Fired”

If my life were Celebrity Apprentice, I’d be giving Donald Trump a run for his money. 

I’ve gotten great at firing people from my life.  You wrong me, you’re done. 

Some people get a few more chances than others, until that final slight that sends their sum of missteps over the top.  Yes, I keep track.  If you’ve ever worked with me, lived with me, befriended me, interacted with me in any miniscule way whatsoever, you have a running tally.  Unbeknownst to you, the tiny ways in which you thought you were screwing me over and getting away with it were all being accounted for.  Sound much like a dysfunctional, paranoid worldview with a ‘get them before they get me’ mentality?

 

Depression is as ruthless as the cutthroat world of business. One by one, those around you enter the metaphorical boardroom, their performance as friend or mom or sibling appraised.  Those who failed to show up during my hour of need are goners.

 

My chiropractor is next in line (yes, I realize how ridiculous this perverse game is).  After a couple months of teetering on the edge with his pushy sales tactics, the attempts to guilt me into coming more often have gone too far.  Sorry dude, I don’t owe you anything.  I come when I want, I pay you for services rendered; that is the extent of my dues.  I’m real nice until you try to take advantage of it, then (as CeeLo Green put it) forget you, and forget you, too.

 

Then the day comes when you look around, and there is no one left.  In all honesty, I’m less miserable and more at peace the fewer people that are in my life.  That way I don’t sit around wondering why people don’t call, why they don’t care, why I’m worthy of neither their time nor attention.  I’m tired of caring more about others than they do about me.

 

Then there are the other days, when the empty void you have created sucks the breath out of you. 

My aunt passed away on Tuesday morning in a hospital room by herself.  No one in the family even knew she was there; a coworker had driven her there two days prior.  Fifty-seven years old and morbidly obese, she’d been alone since a divorce and subsequent rape in her early twenties.  It’s always sad to see another human being essentially give up on life and love and happiness.  When it’s YOU, your own pain outweighs the sadness of others.

The sick part is, I’m jealous.  I don’t think I can do 30 more years of this bullsh*t.  Hell, I don’t know if I can do tomorrow.  I’m pretty sure no deity would answer my prayers to just up and die, but I beg to be let out of this mess anyway.  Let someone live who’s enjoying it.

I turned 31 yesterday.  Still jobless, hopeless, and a hundred pounds overweight.  Another year passed in paralysis, the weight of my screw-ups so unbearable that stillness is my only solace.  I have effectively shut everyone out of my life, and the only reward is that they can no longer hurt me. 

I can’t help but wonder if it’ll be another three decades before I’m dead and no one gives a damn.  The thing is, I don’t want anyone standing over my dead body who never stood beside me in life.