Jumping Off The Skyway

If you’re like me, which, let’s be honest, we both hope you’re not, you have had to deal with depression most of your life.

Now, if you’re fortunate enough not to have had depressions cold hands on your shoulders, accompanied by anxieties firm grasp on your neck, than I, solute you. 

For as long as I can remember, I have been depressed. And I’m not talking that proverbial, it all happened when I hit puberty bullshit, like actual lifetime depression. I have been depressed so long, that to be honest, I struggle to understand if I ever really knew what true happiness was, or if I ever will know. 

At this point, you’re probably thinking, now Summer, aren’t you being a little dramatic? 

In my own personal experience, because you can never correctly judge someone else’s, because life is like a really long t.v. series in which we all are our own characters, and have our own plots to play out, there are multiple types of depression, and multiple personalities that go along with them.

Here are a few I have experienced in my life. 

1. Complete Devastation Depression. He comes into your life, from anywhere from 3 months to a thousand years, and is fucking horrible. He’s the one that keeps your bed for days on end with the lights off, your phone off, your family wondering wtf happened to you, and the covers drawn over your head.He keeps you from showering, eating, basically all the basic things that pass for living.
2. Comfortable Depression. This one is my personal favorite, and one I have been experiencing off and on for the past, six years or so. He is the, “Honest Friend”, the one that comes to your house, drinks your beer, and than proceeds to tell you how fucking ugly that paint you picked looks on your walls, and how anyone in their right mind would hate it too, and who asks you why you can’t get anything right in life? Or replays all your mistakes over in your head constantly and who tells you that no one loves you. They just pretend but really they are just laughing about you behind your back. This depression will stay with you for months and months, and makes you question if you’re even worth it.
3. Suicidal Depression. Now, anytime I have been experiencing any type of depression I have thought about killing myself. And, I would be lying if I said I have never attempted it. Suicidal Depression tends to be stealthy about its approach, comes slowly, like a warm breeze dancing across your skin. It comes in and whispers sweet nothings in your ear, “Why keep doing this?”, “You’re alone”, “Things will never get better”, “You deserve this”, “Just kill yourself”. Now, for anyone that has anyone close to them commit suicide, I’m sorry. That’s all I can say. I am sorry for your grief and your pain. You need to be proud of those people, not for dying, but for fighting as long as they did. 

The worst thing about depression is, I don’t think it will ever go away. I have to deal with all the shitty things in my life, and on top of that, I have a monkey on my back who’s always telling me how shitty I am. How I will never change. How everyone hates me. I listen to that everyday. And I know that voice is not real, and most days, it’s just background noise, but I still hear it. I live with the comfortable depression, with a hint of suicide, and all around numbness. And, they say you can tell people about it, but what are you going to say? How do you confront your mom, who loves you more than anything in the world, and honestly tell her you wish you weren’t alive anymore. I wish I just didn’t exist. I don’t want to do this anymore. Why was I put here?  You can’t, you just can’t say those things, ever. You know why ? Because the minute you do, you’re labeled for the rest of your life. You’re the crazy person. You’re the one that’s going to off them selves as soon as shit hits the fan. That’s totally not true btw. Shit has hit my fan so many times that my walls are covered in it, its splattered over the ceiling, and fuck, sometimes I even find some in my goddamn cereal, but I’ve only fallen into the dark ages, (primed to kill myself), a total of three times. Non successful obviously, and I’m not proud of them either.

It starts like someone is making you climb a mountain, and, when you finally get to the top, the top gets taller, and you have to keep climbing, except this time, your shoes have holes in them, and your feet are bleeding, but the top is so close, you’re almost there, just, don’t care so much. And, just as you’re about to reach it, it gets higher still. And now it’s colder, and you don’t have warm clothes,and you’re tired and your feet,hurt and you leave a trail of blood so far you can’t see where it ends. But you keep going still, and finally, after hours of climbing, after starving for freedom, you think you’ve reached the top, only for it to grow taller…. Now, you can keep climbing, or you can jump. I jumped and I landed in cold water, but alive non the less. The worst thing about jumping off the mountain and surviving? You end up at the very bottom again, and this time, all the people who love you are whipping you, yelling at you, to make it to the top. Urging you not to jump again, because, there might not be water next time…….

“I know this is a dark article people, but bare with me here. I told you I was going to talk about all the crazy shit that happens to me this year, and unfortunately, depression, is apart of every one of my years. Might not be funny, but it’s true. And I am tired of suffering in silence. This is only a description of my experience, and by no means, depicts the experiences of others.”