Journal 18/01/14 : The Ugly Truth about Depression

Until saying it out loud, I didn’t realize how many things have contributed to my depression. And how depressed I really am. I can’t put a finger on exactly how I feel.

Yesterday I had more feeling. But it wasn’t a good feeling. I was sad and angry and anxious. Still, it’s got to be better than this numbness, this nothingness. Doesn’t it? Today I just feel empty and alone –like the world is nothing more than a great empty desert and I’m standing in the middle with no idea which way to go. Which way will lead to civilization? Which way will lead to anything, even a small mirage of something that feels like joy? Which way will lead me out of this hollow arid land? I don’t know. So here I stand, not taking a step, just staring out at the endless nothing.

Every so often I get a glimpse of hope. Maybe I can see my way home. I venture carefully into that hope, one step at a time, feeling my way across the hot sand. But I come right back to the middle of this desert that is my heart.

When I think about it logically, I have no reason to feel this way: I don’t have a terminal illness; my children are all healthy; I have a roof over my head and food in my belly. I have much more than a lot of people, yet I am empty. I can’t remember the last time I felt joy. I don’t mean the last time I smiled, because I do smile. I mean, anyone can plaster a fake smile on their face when they are really crying on the inside, screaming would be more accurate. I can laugh at a funny joke, or smile when the kids say something sweet. But there is no emotion in it. It’s merely a simulation of what I know I should be feeling.

The only emotion I have left is sadness. A terrible melancholy that is permanent, unmoving, and it’s drowning me.

I often wonder how my sadness affects my children. I worry that it’s damaging them. I mean, it can’t be any fun growing up with no father and a mother who has forgotten how to be happy. That’s how it feels, like I have just forgotten. And maybe, if I can remember what made me happy before, before this dark cloud settled over me, if only I could remember how to be happy, maybe then the sun would shine again. I try. I try so hard to remember how to be happy. And occasionally I think I do. But it only lasts seconds before I forget again and the sadness erases any sense that happiness has ever visited this barren desert. I think maybe I have Alzheimer’s of the heart.

Sometimes I wish I would crash. If I could feel physical pain, at least I would be feeling something. Anything is better than an uninhabited heart.