Struggling Not Broken: A Foray Into the Depressed Mind

A big part of depression is feeling really lonely, even if you are in a room full of a million people
Lilly Singh

There is this place I know so well. Nothing grows there; life goes there to die. I know this place so well because I go there often. It is filled with emptiness; vacant looks, empty smiles, and empty conversation. Hung on the walls are dead childhood dreams and traumatic memories from times long ago. Here my screams have no voice; they just scratch at the insides of my throat as I bite them down.

I come here daily so I know this place by heart. I know each wall, each vision, and each demon intimately. My daily visits are always short, but some days, I move into this place and wallow in its dreary ambiance. I deck the windows with curtains made from my tears and paint the walls with my rapidly oscillating emotions. I lay despondency on the floor and cover myself with it for good measure. No one will find me here. No one will free me. When the battle wears me out, I pick myself up, pack my baggage and saunter back into the real world, the brightest of smiles on my face. Some weeks (or days) later, I rinse and repeat.

I have depression.

Saying these words feels like liberation. For as long as I can remember, I have always explained away my depression.
“I have some issues I’m handling but I’ll be fine”, I’ll always say as if I was talking about a minor domestic incident and not my collapsing mental state.

So what does depression feel like?

Depression comes in many forms and multiple waves.

It’s hearing your laughter and smiling sadly at the emptiness between each crest, at how fake it sounds.

It is finding those fringes of unhappiness between each moment of extreme joy.

It is looking at your phone ring and letting the calls ring out, not because you don’t want to talk but because you are afraid they’ll hear the sadness seeping out of you and avoid or worse, pity you.

It is learning to loathe your ringing tone because all desire to make conversation has been wrung out of you.

It is seeing happiness everywhere and anywhere other than where you are standing.

It is wanting to take some of the happiness others have, bottling it, and injecting it into your own soul.

It is looking for happiness in multiple places; in the hearts of many, under different people, inside different bottles, at the end of different joints, inside different books, in the safety net of biting sarcasm, and in the warm confines of supposedly altruistic actions.

It is sitting and staring into space for hours on end and not remembering a time when you didn’t feel like this.

It is wanting to go away from the world and everyone in it and, wanting to be present in the now.

It is having every feeling amplified and you continuously reeling from their intensity and impact.

It is making that vertiginous fall from incandescent happiness to soul-crushing sadness in a matter of milliseconds.

It is holding on convulsively to any bit of happiness that comes your way till that happiness begins to choke and struggle.

It is regarding any happiness that chances to come your way with weary, cynical eyes because you are so used to being a passage, never a home for anything that bright.

It is feeling so many things and nothing all at the same time.

It is seeing life in Technicolor in one moment and in monochrome in the next.

It is finding comfort and peace only in sleep, only for your demons to break down the door and enter your dreams.

It is walking around with this enormous weight you cannot explain, this shadow you cannot dispel, and hoping, with one too many jokes and another bright smile or raucous laughter, you can finally brush some of that light you see in others.

Depression is not a plea for attention, an attempt to be deep or woke, or a spiritual problem.
Everyone always feels depression should have a cause. Maybe something brought you down, they say. In my experience, depression is sometimes idiopathic. I can’t really put a finger on what exactly makes me feel the way I feel. Sometimes, it is a combination of reasons. Other times, it is something I know but cannot really explain or put a name to.

Junior secondary was one of the worst periods of my life. I thought more of death than I thought of life. Some days I was so afraid of going that just the thought was enough to bring tears to my eyes. Other times, the thought of death didn’t shake me. On those days, the pointy blades of my mother’s knives smiled at me like old friends would and it took all I had to resist the siren call of the bottle of otapiapia we kept on the corner window. It was those days of uncommon courage that I came to fear; those days when living seemed more painful than dying. Suicide, like my friend, would say, takes courage and I always pray to never be that brave. I pray you never have to be that brave.

My memories of junior secondary are marked by withdrawal and tear streaks. I remember greeting my parents after returning from tedious extension classes only to go into the bathroom, turn the water on and cry my eyes out. When my mom came to knock on the door, I would quickly fill a bucket with water and detergent, toss some clothes in it and stare into it like the sudsy water held answers to why my heart felt four times too big.

Back then, the only time I remember feeling true peace and calm was during break time. I usually spent break time at the school field. Just sitting there, listening to nature chatter and the breeze whistle at the slender flowers and grass blades calmed the torment in my mind- but even good things end and when break time ended at 11:45 a.m., I had to pick up my mental baggage and go back to class.

At first, no one took notice of my odd practices; all they knew was I was unhappy. What they didn’t know, however, was the extent of my unhappiness. They didn’t understand how someone so young could be so unhappy.

O nwero ife ifugo na ndu (you have not seen anything in life), they would say.

I was still too young to claim to be weighed down by life; I had not seen enough of life to be that jaded. They didn’t understand how someone who had (not all but) some of the basic luxuries of life could claim to be unhappy. Back then, I didn’t understand it at all either. Now, I still don’t completely understand it.

You say you’re depressed- all I see is resilience. You are allowed to feel messed up inside out. It doesn’t mean you are defective- it just means you are human.
David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

Depression is a health issue, just like diabetes or cancer. It is not a flaw, a weakness, or possession by a malevolent spirit. It doesn’t make you less of a person than you already are. Having depression doesn’t mean you are broken; struggling, yes, but never broken. It is important to understand that you are whole and complete, amid your struggles.

When people don’t know exactly what depression is, they can be judgmental
Marion Cotillard

The part of the world I come from is one that doesn’t really understand the unique workings of the depressed mind. Here, religious leaders double as psychologists. When you mention you have depression, you’ll hear things like, “So you want to kill yourself? You’ll go to hell o!” or “Na oyibo dey cause this thing. Africans don’t get depressed. Una just dey copy oyibo”. Before the word “depression” leaves your lips, you are laughed at, pitied, or judged. What’s worse, some people regard depression as the manifestation of demonic possession or witchcraft attacks.

I remember trying to open up to someone about my mental health on WhatsApp. His response pinged in:
“Children of God don’t get depressed. You need to set your spiritual life aright.”

That was the end of me opening up to anyone. I formed a support group that comprised me, my books, my headphones, and my music playlist:
Jon Bellion and Yanni for those days when the pain was bearable.

Books and long walks for when everything inside me became agitated.

Sia, Evanescence, and classical music for when the pain threatened to suffocate me.

I couldn’t open up to friends for fear of being judged, made fun of, or worse, becoming fodder for the rumor mill.

It’s been almost eleven years since I was a depressed eleven-year-old in Js3. I still get depressed but I am better at silencing my demons. Having depression is not something I am proud of, but it is not something I am ashamed of either. It is what it is; we all have different crosses to carry. I have accepted mine and have learned to see the beauty in my struggle.

As impossible as it seems, you will become happy. Life as a depressed person may be hard, but you can overcome all those hardships. You can grow above those issues that plague you, that overwhelming feeling of sadness you feel each time you think of your life, and the discomfort and dissatisfaction you feel at living in your own body.

This is meant to be a been-there-done-that-still-struggling-but-wants-to-help manual of sorts for people struggling with depression. It can be hard trying to mend something you never thought was broken. No, scratch that. It can be hard trying to mend something when you don’t even know what exactly is broken. It can be hard trying to go about your life and live up to the expectation you have for yourself when everything inside you is falling apart like well-placed dominoes.

I want to say it will go away but it’s never that simple, is it? What I know is that you won’t always feel like this. It would start small; you would reclaim bits and pieces of lasting happiness with each minute, with each hour, and finally, with each day. One day, you will smile and it won’t leave an acrid aftertaste. Sometimes, you will go back there, back to that place where nothing grows but you won’t break (so much) this time.

Originally published on Medium.

Like what you read? Check out The Business of Hope and the Economics of Religion in Nigeria and Dear (Nigerian) Writer, You Will Suffer