My experiences with Major Depressive Disorder
When I start feeling like I have my shit together, things are looking up and I’m feeling like myself again, I get ambushed by this wave of negative emotions. It can come in many forms. It can range from an intense feeling of sadness or this blanket of numbness that distances me from experiencing any emotions. I started getting these recurring episodes when I was 17 and usually, it comes around once a month.
This familiar feeling is inevitable and I have learnt to give up and let it happen. It is like fighting against a body of water, the more you push against it, the bigger of a wave you create. The more you struggle, the quicker you tire out and drown. The only thing you can do is try to breathe, try to float, or just get enough of your head above water. This isolating feeling makes me feel disconnected from most people. I constantly feel more lonely after hanging out with friends yet my body still craves some sort of social connection. It never feels like anyone actually understands and this loneliness paradoxically makes me want to disappear from everyone who cares about me.
I feel like I am always drowning and there is no actual reason for me to feel like this. I start going crazy looking for explanations of the source of these emotions. I start telling myself, okay if I do better at school, get bigger muscles or be better at basketball I would start feeling adequate or content. This kind of thinking leads to placing higher standards on myself that eventually starts to crush me and makes it even harder for me to reach my goal. At the same time every time I do make progress, I feel like it is never enough and I can not take time and appreciate my own efforts to feel a little better.
My coping mechanisms aside from self-isolation tend to be binge eating which is antithetical to all the things I find meaningful in life. I love all kinds of physical activity but I can feel my body giving out from all the excess weight I am carrying. I feel like I am two different people at once. When I am happy I can be the most cheerful, talkative, joyous person. Incredibly motivated, and will do whatever it takes to reach my goals. When I start feeling low, I will do the opposite of everything I care about and sabotage all the work I have put in. I feel trapped in this constant cycle and feel like I am always starting from zero. This fluctuation between these two people has led to people repeatedly feeling disappointed in me, losing faith, or angry at me.
After enough time wallowing in my own pity, I sooner or later start feeling okay again. I start to feel the light at the end of the tunnel. I start to enjoy waking up, leaving my bed, and wanting to live life to the fullest. I take initiative in everything I want to do and feel in control of myself. But deep down I know that this feeling is temporary. The whole time I am hypervigilant, looking for any sort of hint that a depressive episode is looming. I know that at any time, my world could collapse and I would go back to being who I really am.
My whole life feels like I am chasing a carrot on a stick. I always start to get close to happiness before it gets yanked away from me.
