Seriously, life can be hell. Most of what I suffered came from other people but when I got away from those bad people/situations, I was so much better. Not suffering in silence is the best medicine. End the stigma.
There seem to be two basic reactions people exhibit when they learn someone is depressed:
1. Concern for your well-being. While this is well-intentioned, it can get very annoying very quickly as people pry into your life, constantly wanting to know how you’re feeling, what you’re doing, and where you’re going. It’s like being on parole.
2. Insecurity about themselves. Most people feel down at times, and occasionally think about self-harm or suicide. Since they don’t want to admit this even to themselves, they feel a need to distance themselves from anyone they associate with those feelings. Small-minded people tease, taunt, and bully. Others ignore and avoid you.
Both of these reactions result from fear, and fear often makes people act strangely.
In our despair it’s tempting to rename ourselves. We hate ourselves and we don’t see ourselves as normal. We stop using our birth name and stop using other ‘human’ titles, and start using names that separate ourselves from the rest of the world. We call ourselves weak, worthless, and other demeaning names. Such as in this case, “made of glass”, “pariah”, “bitter and depressed”, and “something else [that] isn’t good”. Anything to hurt and dehumanize ourselves.
It’s a lot easier to hate or kill something that’s not human or that’s been dehumanized. None of us would look at someone who’s like us; struggling to make their way in life, afflicted with anxiety and depression; and say, ‘They should cut themselves. That person deserves to die. I hate them. They should kill themselves.’ We don’t because we know that they’re human and we know the pain they’re going through, and how hard it all is. We empathize with them and care about them.
And these are thoughts that we absolutely can’t have about ourselves. Our depression and anxiety forbids it, and we forbid it too. Even though we’re in the same boat… We’re somehow worse and different. Somehow THEY deserve to live, but YOU definitely deserve to die. And that’s a tragedy. It’s a tragedy that we’re physically and psychologically limited from seeing ourselves as ‘also human’.
I’m so sorry that you’re going through this. I hope reading Depression Comix and this comment gives you some measure of peace. I hope that each day you remember how terrible this illness is, and seek help for it; whether you’re afflicted in body, spirit, or both. I hope you never forget that there are people out there who understand what you’re going through, who care about you, and who might even be able to give you relief.
Keep fighting. For yourself. For those future people that you will meet, afflicted just as you were or are, whom you’ll be in perfect understanding of and able to offer the same relief that you yourself so desperately sought.
I didn’t try to kill myself, someone else did that for me after I had my PTSD and depression mostly under control, and except for the fact that I was in my forties and not in school, it was pretty much the same situation for me. People will treat you differently after you survive a near-death experience and it doesn’t matter if it was someone else trying to kill you or you trying to kill you.
@Opus the Poet , really? That is shocking. I cant imagine being treated differently after a stranger tried to murder you. After all if you had died, everyone would feel a sense of loss. So if you survived an attack, shouldnt they celebrate that you survived or fought off your attacker?
I was attacked with a pickup truck as I rode my bike home from my 2nd shift job, which people didn’t want me to take because the bus stopped running several hours before the shift ended. Some people saw this as justification for their efforts to confine my employment to hours when public transit was available or to buy a car if I was going to work when there was no bus. AKA live my life by their standards instead of my own which is also what the guy who tried to kill me was screaming when he ran into me on my bike. He was saying I shouldn’t be riding my bike on the same road he was driving on, even if I was going the opposite direction and on the other side of a grassy median, to use his words I should “Get off the F*CKING road!”
Just fucking @ me next time.
One of the biggest fears…
Yeah… it’s pretty much The Thought that brought me back from the edge a few times.
welcome into my world, but unlike you they never stop talking with me, they bring me uncontrollable headache
Fear of the fallout of failing is one of the biggest things that kept me from trying.
I worry sometimes that we just live the same life on repeat.. kill myself to escape just to have to live through it all over again…
Seriously, life can be hell. Most of what I suffered came from other people but when I got away from those bad people/situations, I was so much better. Not suffering in silence is the best medicine. End the stigma.
There seem to be two basic reactions people exhibit when they learn someone is depressed:
1. Concern for your well-being. While this is well-intentioned, it can get very annoying very quickly as people pry into your life, constantly wanting to know how you’re feeling, what you’re doing, and where you’re going. It’s like being on parole.
2. Insecurity about themselves. Most people feel down at times, and occasionally think about self-harm or suicide. Since they don’t want to admit this even to themselves, they feel a need to distance themselves from anyone they associate with those feelings. Small-minded people tease, taunt, and bully. Others ignore and avoid you.
Both of these reactions result from fear, and fear often makes people act strangely.
In our despair it’s tempting to rename ourselves. We hate ourselves and we don’t see ourselves as normal. We stop using our birth name and stop using other ‘human’ titles, and start using names that separate ourselves from the rest of the world. We call ourselves weak, worthless, and other demeaning names. Such as in this case, “made of glass”, “pariah”, “bitter and depressed”, and “something else [that] isn’t good”. Anything to hurt and dehumanize ourselves.
It’s a lot easier to hate or kill something that’s not human or that’s been dehumanized. None of us would look at someone who’s like us; struggling to make their way in life, afflicted with anxiety and depression; and say, ‘They should cut themselves. That person deserves to die. I hate them. They should kill themselves.’ We don’t because we know that they’re human and we know the pain they’re going through, and how hard it all is. We empathize with them and care about them.
And these are thoughts that we absolutely can’t have about ourselves. Our depression and anxiety forbids it, and we forbid it too. Even though we’re in the same boat… We’re somehow worse and different. Somehow THEY deserve to live, but YOU definitely deserve to die. And that’s a tragedy. It’s a tragedy that we’re physically and psychologically limited from seeing ourselves as ‘also human’.
I’m so sorry that you’re going through this. I hope reading Depression Comix and this comment gives you some measure of peace. I hope that each day you remember how terrible this illness is, and seek help for it; whether you’re afflicted in body, spirit, or both. I hope you never forget that there are people out there who understand what you’re going through, who care about you, and who might even be able to give you relief.
Keep fighting. For yourself. For those future people that you will meet, afflicted just as you were or are, whom you’ll be in perfect understanding of and able to offer the same relief that you yourself so desperately sought.
I didn’t try to kill myself, someone else did that for me after I had my PTSD and depression mostly under control, and except for the fact that I was in my forties and not in school, it was pretty much the same situation for me. People will treat you differently after you survive a near-death experience and it doesn’t matter if it was someone else trying to kill you or you trying to kill you.
@Opus the Poet , really? That is shocking. I cant imagine being treated differently after a stranger tried to murder you. After all if you had died, everyone would feel a sense of loss. So if you survived an attack, shouldnt they celebrate that you survived or fought off your attacker?
I was attacked with a pickup truck as I rode my bike home from my 2nd shift job, which people didn’t want me to take because the bus stopped running several hours before the shift ended. Some people saw this as justification for their efforts to confine my employment to hours when public transit was available or to buy a car if I was going to work when there was no bus. AKA live my life by their standards instead of my own which is also what the guy who tried to kill me was screaming when he ran into me on my bike. He was saying I shouldn’t be riding my bike on the same road he was driving on, even if I was going the opposite direction and on the other side of a grassy median, to use his words I should “Get off the F*CKING road!”