The Black Hole

This is a post I wrote on my old tumblr blog. I am publishing it here because it is important to me.

Throughout my life I have always thought of my depression as a big black hole. At various times I have different perspectives of the hole. Sometimes I am standing at the top looking down into the darkness, other times I feel I am falling through it. Some times I feel I am clingy desperately to the sides and very occasionally I am laying crumpled at the bottom with the darkness all around me, above me, inside me, being breathed in with every breath until it consumes me. Today I am that tiny broken figure at the bottom of the hole.

It is strange for me to be writing this on a public blog that I am more than aware will post to my twitter feed once written. I am a very open person, there is not much about myself I won’t share, but there are those tiny scraps of paper where my darkest secrets are written, those scraps of paper are inside tiny boxes tied with ribbon and those tiny boxes do not get opened very often and never in such a public way before. When I was seeing a psychologist she told me that I was the most effective “numb-er” she had ever seen. Numbing is my coping mechanism and at the same time my greatest strength and largest weakness. I have learned over the years that in order to continue on with my life in a semi-functional way I should numb myself to the pain. I then put whatever the painful thing is in a box and put the box on a very high shelf in a cupboard and never look at it again if possible.

So anyway, where was I? Oh yes, at the bottom of a black hole. It has been building up for days, I’ve known it was coming on some level if not a completely conscious one. I stopped taking my anti depressants a couple of weeks ago mostly because I kept forgetting to take it. They also weren’t being as effective as I wanted them to be. I was still constantly, overwhelmingly apathetic about everything, unable to motivate myself to perform even the most simple everyday tasks, struggling to leave the house to see friends.

Today I crashed. All I could think about was hurting myself. I in no way shape or form want to end my life, but the thought of hurting myself consumed me. Because hurting myself means the pain is real not just in my head. Because physical pain is easier for other people to understand than an intangible emotional pain. Suddenly I feel like nothing I’ve ever done in my life is good enough, I’m not a good enough daughter, wife or mother. I feel I have never achieved anything in my life, never finished anything, never completed anything worth recognition. Like I have nothing to be proud of. I am suddenly unsure why anyone in my life would like, love or want to spend time with me.

I spent about half an hour sobbing into my pillow while my amazing husband fed the kids, made sure they did their night time chores and got them ready for bed. Then he came and comforted me, hugged me and told me all the things he knew I needed to hear. So now I am all puffy but feeling slightly better. I am watching funny things on the TV and once I have finished writing this I will snuggle with Alan on the couch. I have a doctors appointment on Friday and will hopefully get some new, more effective anti-depressants. Hopefully things will return to a more normal state and I will be either clinging to the edge of the hole of once more standing at the top.

I wanted to share this with the world because I want people to understand what its like to be depressed. I want people to know that even those who seem to function well struggle underneath the facade. I want people that suffer to know that they are not alone. I guess I just want my story to be heard, so thanks for reading.