On Anxiety and Depression

I just came across a Thought Catalog article that really hit close to home.  I was reading and trying not to sob and puke from knowing just how much I could relate to it.

“If you are depressed you are living in the past, if you are anxious you are living in the future,” Lao Tzu.

I can’t say that that’s not true. We worry about things that we shouldn’t really have been. We see what could go wrong first before we notice everything that’s right. We are constantly panicking not to panic. It’s exhausting.

We are not anxious all the time, but new information may trigger it. Say you want to meet us at a new restaurant at an unfamiliar location, what do we do? We get anxiety attack. Our mind suddenly explode into all these tiny possibilities of what could go wrong: “I might get lost!” “I will be late if I get lost!” “Which way is faster?” “Which way has less traffic?” “Damn, does that mean I have to take the roundabout?” “Which lane of the roundabout?” “Why isn’t it on a map?” “How do I navigate my way there?” “What time should I leave?” “How far is it from home?” and it goes on and on and on that we pretty much lose sleep over it. Our chest tighten and we can't breathe until it's over.

Little things in our daily life can be consuming and our brain just never stops processing and producing all of these possibilities that are so unnecessary. It’s the same with promises and plans; we just don’t like to be disappointed.

And what about depression?

Depression is the scariest of it all. It puts our lives on the edges of everything.  We don’t like to be told as if we’ve never gotten help, we tried. It’s not something that just goes away, and you don’t simply find a cure for it. Yes, everyone struggles but not everyone suffers. We are always trying to lessen the suffering we get from depression, but sometimes we just can’t fight it. Life becomes pitch black, numb and heavy. It’s sweetness in our body forgotten, replaced with every inch of pain we could possibly feel. We have no words for it. We just let it take its course and believe the storms will soon pass.

A little over four months ago, I had one of those moments. It was so terrifying that I was too afraid to get out of the house. I couldn’t trust myself. I’ve had suicidal thoughts in the past but it was the first time in my life that I felt determined to do it. Everything that I saw and held gave me an idea of how it could kill me. For the longest 2 weeks of my life, I was afraid of myself. I called up a friend, who was in counselling and sought for help. I talked to someone who had been on pills, but told him that I didn’t want it because at that time, I was already thinking of overdosing myself. And in the midst of all that, where was my partner?

I was alone, lonely, unloved and uncared for and the only person, who could pick me up, was myself. I knew I needed to give the care and comfort I needed so I did exactly that. It wasn’t easy but I was glad there were people I could talk to every now and then, and motivated me to find ways to stand up again.

On my way to recovery, more unfortunate events befell me; wedding cancelled, my project got defunded and then I was told to resign. And soon, my grandma’s passing. Shouldn’t these give me more reasons to be depressed? Well, no. It doesn’t work like that. Like I said, we have very little control over it. When it happens, it happens.

So being with someone like me isn’t easy, and I don’t blame them for leaving, for not seeing a future with me. We are a lot to handle, and we get it. That’s why sometimes we’re upfront about it so that you can back out before it’s too late, before we get too attached hoping that you would be the one to catch us when we fall – literally falling into a dark pit.

But there are some of us who are stronger than you might think. We know what it feels like to be in such an emotional state, that we can be compassionate and loving. We have so much love in our soul to give. We want so much to treat others with kindness and warmth that we do want to make so many people around us happy. Yes, we get crazy sometimes but if you just stick with us through it, maybe it won’t come and visit as often. And we would like that very very much.