Hi Chris
I want to be able to openly speak about how truly horrible depression can be but I know I have to be careful with how I choose to phrase things. A lot of how I'd like to phrase things, in the way of complete honesty, would be triggering and I don't want to be triggering for you Chris. That's the last thing I want for you.
I want to be able to let fly with all the profanities under the sun, with you, when it comes to what I think of depression. I'd like to be able to express to the fullest extent how soul destroying it can feel, what it can do to us not just on a mental and physical level but also a real soulful level, which for me was the worst possible level at which to be impacted. I want to be able to say a lot to you. No sugar coating it, so that you can know that how you feel is raw, brutal and torturous and it's the worst a person can ever feel, no matter what it was that led them to feel life in such a way. I know how it feels to want it to stop.
I know it sounds selfish Chris but I don't want you to go. I can see the best in you. I truly can. It's so hard to see or even hear the best in us when depression drowns it out. The best in you will say 'You've got this. You can do this' until depression says 'Who are you kidding'. The best in you will say 'You need to call for help. This is a process you can get through. Have faith in yourself' until depression says 'There's no point. You are hopeless'. The best will dictate 'Life will be different at some point' until depression screams 'Nothing will ever change!'. This is one of the things I hate most about depression, how it fights with the best in us, how it wares down the best in us. It's not fair that depression should be allowed to take the best in us.
Doing whatever it takes to find more of the best in us is, in part, how the battle is won. Hard to do when you're mentally and physically exhausted, when you've just got no energy left. Depression cannot tolerate us finding more of the best in our self. It cannot survive such an onslaught, such a 'battle strategy'. If depression was a person, it would be their job to stop you from reaching the verge of change. Depression would do whatever it took to stop you from reaching the verge. To reach that verge and go beyond it, is worth fighting for.
Please call your care team Chris. I don't want depression to stop you from reaching that verge you will come to find one day. Don't let it win, as you've fought so hard to make it this far.
