Today, stuck under my duvet like an oyster, buried myself in the abyss of depression, I have decided to talk about this taboo subject on which it is difficult to define the meaning: depression. I talk about this subject because I want to shed light on a disease that is invisible to the eyes, a disease that traps the victim in the hell of loneliness for fear of being perceived as a “burden”, and that of course because of the expectations that society places on the individual. So I say to all those beings who suffer from this devastating disease that you are never alone, that depression can affect any individual, like that, hitting them at the bend of a street on an ordinary spring day and sun, that it affects all people of all ages, regardless of origin, gender, history, in short, it spares no one.
Depression is neither a “mood disorder” nor “prolonged sadness”. Depression is having a Damocles sword hanging over your head. It’s being stuck in an indecipherable labyrinth of Daedalus, from which even Ariadne’s thread will not be able to get us out. It is having an inner malaise that simply cannot be put into words and cannot be explained to others. It’s losing everything – your habits, your interests, your loved ones, your passions, your sleep, your days, your time, your reason for being, your taste for life – but the worst loss is that of yourself. -same. It means no longer conceiving of the sun, no longer differentiating day from night, no longer contemplating what time it is, because every day is exactly the same. It is to be under a leaden screed. It’s being hypersensitive and having the sensitivity embedded in your skin, it’s getting angry if someone says “hello” to you or asks you if you’re okay. It’s feeling a thousand emotions at once, but also being numb and dried up with emotion.
It’s wanting to get out of it but now being too used to the dark. It is wanting to respond to messages from others, but having the desire to be alone and sink into loneliness. It’s wanting to eat but not having an appetite, it’s involuntary weight loss. It’s having sleepless nights and sleeping during the day to escape the light. It’s sleepless nights because of accumulated anxiety and anguish, nights when the eye can not touch the taste of sleep. It’s no longer answering your emails and having your mailbox overwhelmed with unanswered messages. That’s dozens of missed calls and a bunch of messages. It’s being human without feeling human, having a heart without feeling its beating, it’s feeling that we’re no longer alive, that this life isn’t made for us. It is the unknown and inaccessible desire to laugh madly, without interruption, to touch, if only for a second, a golden happiness. It’s watching others at work moving forward in life, doing simple tasks that seem impossible to us, while we are constantly plunging into a bottomless abyss. It is a Herculean effort to get up or to make your bed. It’s landing in life with a smile while the heart is in flames. It’s living in a body that fights every moment to breathe, while the heart seeks death. It’s panic attacks that leave us overwhelmed and moved by their intensity. It’s staying curled up under your duvet, in your bed, breathing boredom, contemplating the ceiling, waiting for time to pass, for something to happen, but in vain, because nothing changes in this cocoon. darkened that has no life. It’s having scars as visible as they are invisible, it’s having bruises in the soul, bruises on the heart, it’s feeling a ball go down in your bowels so much you feel things intensely. It is, being faced with one’s demons, crying incessantly, crying until our eyes burn, until the tears dry up and our body is emptied of water. It’s bursting into tears listening to this song that crushes our hearts and reminds us of those days when everything was fine. It is the official resignation of a life with a dark and hard face. It is a physical pain which reaches its climax, which makes every part of the body quiver, but also a psychic pain which breaks the heart in two, a twinge in the heart. It’s wanting to retire from life for good, but not wanting to hurt others. It’s seeing others, your age, deciding their lives, finding their passion, their training, their best friends, while you sink into despair without knowing anything, without any plan for the future. It’s being killed slowly, it’s drowning in the lake of one’s tears. It’s being dirty for days and sometimes for weeks, being ashamed of yourself but not being able to take a simple bath. It’s being stuck in a loneliness that forces you to think, that turns the brain into a mill. It’s being without a gray cloud, in a stormy rain, but having no umbrella or shelter. It’s not having the motivation to do the most basic tasks: brushing your teeth, hair, washing your face, changing your clothes. It is to be in a spiral of absolute disinterestedness, pessimism, isolation, lassitude and fatigue, apathy and torpor. It is the impossibility of appreciating the small delights of life, of being content with a walk, the sun, the beauty of nature, the trees, the forget-me-nots, the spring, the flowers, the periwinkles, the small miracles of life, of anything. It’s forgetting to hydrate, it’s not having the energy to make a meal. It’s the feeling of lifting a rock to the top of a slope and repeating this task over and over again, like the torture of Sisyphus. It’s not the urge to die, rather it’s the urge to disappear until things can go back to their normal course. It is to feel that one is constantly exhausted, it is to be tired even though one spends the time in bed. It’s not having anything to cling to, it’s not having hope anymore, it’s not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. It is the feeling of being punished for some unknown reason. It’s intense guilt. It’s feeling that the heart is going to explode while we feel at the same time that we are a heartless body. It is to dream of this insidious couple that is happiness and hope. It’s a voice that whispers to us to lock ourselves up and get stuck in bed, to give up the fight for good. It’s aiming to drink a drop of water for the day. It is to neglect his well-being, his health, his medication. It’s receiving remarks to “be better” or “be happy” as if you had never thought of that before.
Depression is a disease that crushes the human heart, except that it is easier to admit that one has pain in the leg than it is in the heart. It is easier to say that our stomach is gnawing at us than to say that our heart is broken. Unfortunately, it is easier to admit physical pain than mental pain. It is therefore difficult to identify depression because someone can suffer in silence and deceive us with a smug smile as they burn from within. So yes, she is the person with the golden and contagious laughter. The person who distributed smiles wherever she went. It was she who filled the room with joy by the echo of her laughter, it was she who went through all this chaos. She who has the facade of being happy, complete, silent, crowned with success and knowledge. These are the people who most need a hand to save them from drowning, these are the people who suffer on the sly, these are the people who most need attention, love and of tenderness.
But I assure you that if happiness has ever visited you, even once, if only for a single second, then it is quite possible to get rid of this mishmash and find it again. new. It is possible that your heartbeat will return to its normal course, this chemical imbalance will eventually find its balance, this brain will find a cure, you will be well, it will take time, but one day, that’s for sure. And the scars that this battle left in me, in you, will ultimately be the reminder that we won, that we fought above all else.
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Today, stuck under my duvet like an oyster, buried myself in the abyss of depression, I have decided to talk about this taboo subject on which it is difficult to define the meaning: depression. I speak on this subject because I want to shed light on a disease that is invisible to the eyes, a disease that traps the victim in the hell of loneliness by…