Withdrawing

When I’m going through my worst depressive episodes, one of the things that brings me way more suffering than I already need to be under is social isolation. It is so easy to just stay at home, not get out of bed all way, and retrieve into yourself and your misery even when the people close to you just want to help and be there for you. It infuriates me to no end, because I know that what I’m doing is not helping me in any way, but when you don’t have the energy to get up and fix something for yourself to eat, how are you supposed to do something so taxing as socializing with other people?

Depression drains you of any and all resources you have to use to just keep everyday tasks going. Tasks such as eating, going to the bathroom, taking a shower, changing into clean clothes – all things healthy people would never even consider to be tasks of any kind. They are just normal things human beings do to maintain themselves and make sure they’re taken care of; why would something so obvious take any extra effort from you? Through observing the way people with less knowledge converse on topics relating to mental illness and disability, I’ve come to the simple conclusion that these people just don’t think about doing the things you might not be able to complete in an entire day. That is, I’m pretty sure, why they see things like lack of personal hygiene as laziness instead of a valid struggle a disabled or mentally ill individual deals with constantly. 

lies.

But sometimes social withdrawal is not even about the lack of energy or spoons. It’s not about the incapability to withstand the toll of being in contact with other people. Sometimes, it’s more like a form of self-harm, or at least self-sabotage. 

I remember many a time when I’ve had my friends message me and ask me how I’m doing, if there’s something I need to talk about. Sometimes they do it just to check up on me impromptu, but some other times it’s because of something I have posted on my close friends story or talked about previously with them. There’s an aura of upset feelings in the air, and my friends are really good at clocking it when it’s about me. They know when there’s something wrong, something is bothering me, something I probably should talk to someone about. And they message me, asking;

“Hey, bro, are you okay? Is there something that’s upsetting you right now? I’m here if you need to talk about anything.”

That kind of caring, an extending of a helping hand, should be joyous to me. It should bring me comfort and solace, in knowing that I have people around me now who actually give a shit about me and my well-being. After everything I’ve been through, you would think I would be elated to see a person I love offer me their shoulder to cry on. And many times, that is the case. But when the emptiness of depression is eating me alive, I just don’t.

It’s nothing personal, it’s got nothing to do with the person who’s reaching out to me, even if something in our previous conversations had ended up triggering me in some way. It’s never their responsibility. And yet, I still choose to close off, retrieve and escape, even when I know it’s not good for me. 

Depression makes me feel like I deserve nothing, nothing but the Pain I’ve been in for my whole life. So when there’s an opportunity of something good happening to me, depression turns its ugly face toward me, demanding me to sit the fuck down and not talk to anybody, not even my girlfriend or my best friend when they’re worried about me, because at the end of the day, I am nothing but a pathetic excuse of a human being who should rot in their own filth because that is all this world has thrusted upon me. 

“But what about the good things, the good people?”

Depression blocks them away from my vision, making it impossible for me to reach them, emotionally or verbally. So I stay in bed all day, crying and wallowing in my self-pity, mustering up the energy and courage to reply to the worried messages with a phrase that hurts to say out loud, or even on screen. Because I know that it’s a lie, a lie I have been telling myself as long as I can remember. But it’s easier for me to lie to myself. The people who I actually love, who are important to me? Lying to them hurts in a way I can’t put into words.

And it keeps the empty void of depression happy and satiated. All the while my own body and soul are wilting away by my own accord.

Diving under the duvet,

ichigonya