What is it like to be depressed? What does the depressed person think?
Updated: Oct 8, 2022
If you are wondering what a depressed person, severely depressed, feels when he thinks about taking his own life, my story may help you with that. I have been writing a diary for years - but almost always in depression.
This is not a current entry (I wrote it on February 9, 2020) But a very important entry for me. If you are struggling with depression, the moment when you are so far away that you think about death, and do it quite calmly, know that you are not alone. I was there. Maybe you will find a bit of what you feel in this post. Maybe it will give you the strength to fight today. Because it will pass, even if you don't believe it now. I did not believe either. I never believe it. In fact, in this disease, it is harder to believe with each episode. But the sun always comes out after a storm. This is the way things are. Let's wait together for the storm in your life to pass. Because none lasts forever.
In depression, your suicide seems logical to you
Days like today scare me when it comes… I don't even know what it is. Doubt, resignation so big that it is almost calm. And then you think clearly and purely that your death will be the best solution for everyone. I have no doubts about it. My husband will have a clear path to figure out for himself legal life with her. Well, they will even be able to get married in a church if the other one dreams of a white dress with a great train, and this generation, the generation from which she is also, is brought up on fairy tales about princesses, on romantic comedies on fairy-tale princesses - let's face it, most women dream about it. So they can do it. Anyway, he wants to legalize it - after all, he has already bought the ring. So they can do it. They will cease to live in separation, in that she has to share him with his children. It will also be good for my children - they will have a new mum and dad who love each other, and they will have some pattern of male-female relationships that I and their father will never give them. I am insured against death, they will get some money, they will have enough time for a quiet life, and maybe they will decide to go to Norway permanently. They will be happy. My husband will have no remorse - he will only feel relief. Now there is not - there is not enough to not do what he does - if I was not, he would not have them, the more so, on the contrary, everything would work out for him, all those inconveniences that sometimes hurt him so gently somewhere, it will all disappear it will just disappear.
Idyll. The madwoman eliminated herself.
In depression, you have low self-esteem
Today I looked at my children, at my girls, when I thought about it when I imagined it - and felt absolutely nothing. No regrets for leaving them - I'm not a very good mother, a shit - their father is a good father - except for one small detail that he left us - but when he is, he can take care of them and look after them much better than I can. And I - for me, being with them is torment, it's crying, it's despair, because I was supposed to be with them and their father, we were supposed to be together, and we are not and will never be again. My husband hates me and despises me. Maybe he feels sorry for me sometimes. But he is probably angry more often at the fact that I am alive at all and complicating his life. The girls are still small, if I disappear now, they will not remember me - more - they will gain something - a full house, a happy family, loving parents.
Could anyone, or anyone else, be bothered by my lack? Maybe my boss - but I know that Bartek (a colleague from work) will deal with it all if he has to. There are no irreplaceable people, it is a sad truth, but it is good that it is so. My parents? Even if I die, they will never accept me, for them it will be desertion, cowardice, but they will also get over my head - and maybe my children too, if my husband goes abroad. My siblings? I feel abandoned and misunderstood by anyone, and more than that even ridiculed and despised by everyone. In a moment of despair, I write to my sister, who is silent. She did not write back, call or come.
In depression you hate yourself
My father, when he sees me in despair, torn by tears when I found the engagement ring in my husband's things - and asks what's going on - and when he knows, he does not comfort me, he only threatens me: "What did you expect?" And I hear in my head: You are an idiot, crazy, what did you expect? Fuck. When your child falls off, I don't know, off a bike, from a cupboard and screams out loud because he suffers because he has hit - this is not the time for reprimands, moralizing - only this is the time when you take your baby in your arms and you hug and tell him that you are with him. You ease his pain. There will be times for learning when there will be peace. My pain is unacceptable. Misunderstood. Despised. It makes me feel like nobody. Worth nothing. Not good enough, insufficient, deficient. I have a grudge against my parents. Yes, I have a grudge against my parents and at the same time a great, if not even greater, pangs of conscience. My mother, says that it is not surprising that my husband wants a divorce, that he wants to make a life with the other, and my resistance and opposition to it is nonsense, because what does it change?
When depressed, you feel misunderstood and abandoned
Nobody understands it, rather everyone perceives it like my crazy, no dignity (fuck, the guy is gone, this guy doesn't want you and you don't want to let him go), even spite. When I am talking about it, people are silent. I think they despise it. That it is funny to them, pathetic indeed. Because that's how it should be - let go of this peasant, let him arrange his life as he wants. It is known that he doesn't want you.
And what are my arguments for that? That Jesus tells me - you must not, you must not agree to divorce? And the whole world, including your loved ones, is shouting at you - fuck it. You are young, beautiful, gifted - you will have your own life. You have the right to. There is half of this flower in the world, you should also find someone. And you will surely find someone who will love you with all their heart and will not do what your husband did to you.
Then I think to myself - Lord Jesus, you deceived me. Come on, I defend it, but you are not with me. You're not helping me, and You promised you would be there for me. But you're not there. There is only darkness and emptiness and light, hope, and joy out of nowhere. And then I think to myself that I am living under some great illusion that God does not exist, or if he is, he is mocking me. You throw too much on me, God, I can't carry it anymore, neither with a smile on my face nor at all. I'm losing faith. What's the point of that? What's the point of that? I can't see him. I don't want to accept. Sometimes I think to myself - you will kill yourself and what? Will you go to hell? What if you're already in Hell now? Maybe you already died some time ago and this is hell? Your beloved, your beloved husband threw you in the trash when he used up you. This is not the first person who has treated me in such a brutal way. First, was close, and then at the least expected moment - a jeer with a roundabout, kick in the snout, dagger in the hair, kick, trample, spit while lying down. And no one will give you a specific reason.
When depressed, you feel worthless
There is something in me, something in me that the most important people in life treat me that way. You're just a fucking lunatic. The thought of self-elimination is absolutely logical. I've been living for 34 years and people always leave me. So that's what makes me do it. And I cannot name it, see it, know it, touch it, change it. Anyway, what for? Such a stalemate - no one will ever love me with their whole being and will not treat me as I deserve it, with love - because I can't let anyone like that into my life, because that's what God wants me to do. Well sorry, but it sounds moderately optimistic. I need someone next to me who will hug me when I am hard, who will sleep next to me, and whose warmth I will feel. Who will take me every night. I need my husband. And you, God, tell me - you should not have a husband or anyone else next to you, but trust me, you can be happy. Well, on days like today, I knock on my forehead and think to myself - I think you are fucked up, Lord God. And then I think to myself - no Joanna, you fucked up that you clung to this Lord God because God does not exist.
Conclusion
If you are currently struggling with a crisis and experiencing similar conditions, I want to tell you that you are not alone and that I understand you. I was in this place and I know that someday I will be there again, such a disease it is. But that will pass. It always passes by sometime. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower. Sometimes you have to wait a long time for this and then you will understand that it is worth fighting for. There is hope. Go to therapy, go to a psychiatrist. Depression is no shame, none of us asked for it. But everyone has a chance to get out of it. I'm with you. You are important and beautiful the way you are. Also in sickness. Write if you want to chat.
Don't wait. Fight. For yourself, for a better tomorrow. Remember - it will pass. It always passes. I'm telling you this, the me who glides from depression to mania every now and then. That's my dear. But I'm not giving up, and neither are you. You have strength and light in you. Together we can do it.
