The Days I Hate

Struggling with depression, I have bad days and good days. I have horrible days, and I have great days. It's easy to see how I would love the good days and hate the bad days. And I do.

But the days I hate the most are not the bad days.

The days I hate the most are not the days I struggle to keep from crying almost every second. The days I hate the most are not the days when I have to ration my energy from the moment I get out of bed so I can make it to the point where I can go back to bed. The days I hate to most are not the days when I cannot stand to be touched. They are not the days when I can hardly move. They are not the days where everything pisses me off. They are not the days when mindless frustration and rage boils so close to the surface where anything can send me into a screaming frenzy.

No, the days I hate the most start with a smile. The days I hate the most start with confidence and strength and responsibility. The days I hate the most are the ones that last long enough to let me fall.

It always hurts more to fall from a great height than to sit at the bottom of a hole.

The worst days are the days when I can stand up straight for most of the time, but sag before the day is over. The days I hate the most are the days when my pills work, but wear off.

And I know why.

Shakespeare said that 'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, but Shakespeare clearly wasn't depressed. Because having a good day, and then losing it before the day is over just makes the fight feel futile. Having a day when the pills wear off is just a reminder that it's the pills that make everything okay. Having a day when the pills wear off just makes obvious the reason I didn't want the pills to begin with.

I remember being fifteen and talking with a man for half an hour, and then having the man telling me that I'd be better off receiving extra serotonin from an outside source. I've been saying that for over a year, I said to myself. I wasn't a hypochondriac; just a very self-aware fourteen-year-old. So what made this man's opinion, this man who had known me for half an hour, more valid than my own? Why was it that I got help when someone else said I needed it, and not when I did?

I thought for a few minutes about refusing the pills. I sat in silence as I considered what it would mean. It would mean an end to the slight independence I had treasured and nurtured for the past five years. It would mean that the attempt to make myself self-sufficient had failed. It would mean that my effort to help my parents by making one less worry for them had backfired, and now I was an even bigger worry. But most of all, it meant that I didn't have control.

I accepted the pills because maybe the monthly drain on their wallets would make my parents pay a little more attention to me. Maybe this concrete proof positive that their middle child wasn't unaffected by the break in the family would push them towards healing. But no, the pills were accepted as the cure, and the illusion of being okay was accepted in place of actually being okay, because it was easier. And my fragile illusion of control was shattered.

I needed that control. I still need it. In a world where so many things are beyond my control, having control over my body gave me a comforting illusion of safety and security. That's why I can't give up my control. Giving someone else control over my body is the ultimate form of trust for me, and it hurts bitterly when that trust is betrayed.

Daily, I entrust my wellbeing, my brain chemistry, my most essential self, to little blue pills, and every time they fail, that trust is shattered, and I am that much farther from trusting anyone else that completely. But I have to go through the possibility of being betrayed every day, because it's better for the rest of the people in my life if I can never fully trust anyone than if I spend days on end in bed, too lethargic to move.

And people wonder why I don't get close to anyone.