You don't know how they feel, the right words will never come to you and you're almost never sure what triggers it. It creeps in closer and closer, first consuming friends of friends, acquaintances and finally the people you love most. The first was a friend of my parents, then it became a hall mate, then an extended family member, then a boyfriend and now a member of my immediate family.
The extended family member is more or less in recovery -if that is truly possible and I hope with all my heart it is-. The hall mate I don't know well enough to ask, but every time I see an update on her facebook profile or happy pictures of her, I am glad to see that she is still around, living through her issues one day at a time and that things are hopefully working out for her.
Two of the other individuals mentioned have taken their lives. I will remember the day my mother called me telling me of Uncle T's passing on and of how my father, a stoic man by any yardstick, was inconsolable for the longest of times. The second was personally more devastating, a former boyfriend whose death could not be confirmed as accidental or intentional. Even before the actual end though, the torture of witnessing his suffering with depression has left me raw.
A nightmare I could not arouse from. No choice but for this cross to be borne...
The close encounters with depression taught me to distinguish between the blues that we, the non-afflicted, suffer from and the actual clinical problem. So when a mentally healthy person goes, "oh just get over it," or "we all feel this way," to someone who is clinically depressed, I want to scream, telling them to shut the hell up because getting over it is what the depressed most want too and no, you and I without the illness don't actually feel the same way. We will probably never feel the way they do or be able to completely fathom it either, and for that rejoice!
As for the immediate family member, it upsets me that I didn't allow myself to recognise the signs for what they were. Low self-esteem, a propensity for self-harm, implausible stories that didn't quite add up -particularly on the self-harm-, substance abuse etc.
Having already faced one of the hardest knocks depression could throw my way (with the exception of having it in itself), the merciless scourging this illness metes out still smarts. Ominous warning signals were going off at the back of my head when these old friends were espied but I was too emotionally flayed to contend with them, yet again.
Instead of dealing with the situation full on, cravenly me dodged the devastating implications of what might be. The result of a flinch? Potentially a consequence of greater magnitude. Would it have done any good to have voiced my suspicions earlier? We all -probably- felt that my opinions may not have been completely objective due to past experiences. The disquiet was oft left unvoiced as I worried of projecting memories on something that may have a completely valid and wholly different explanation. Now it has been confirmed and for one of the few times, I hate being right. We can only do what we can and hope for the best.
I am so terrified of losing you, I don't know how to tell you that; but my dearest, this too shall pass.
No comments:
Post a Comment