You're Right, I Can't Possibly Understand: On Depression

The most controversial thing I say is probably that depression is your responsibility to fix.

But, what would I know? It's not like I've been standing where you're standing, glass in the back of my neck and dandelion fluff in my teeth, trying to eat a meal I couldn't even swallow, saying that you don't understand my pain, that it's too hard, that maybe you could fix yourself, but I'm different. Special. I am glorious and special in my pain.

It's impossible to fix myself, because I'm broken. I'm broken like a light-bulb that hits the floor and shatters. I'm broken because look! I've done the research and I didn't get enough love as a child so have an overactive amygdala and my prefrontal cortex loses activity when I have a flashback.

Some people are just broken, okay? Some people are just broken and cannot be fixed. So let me curl down on the floor with the remnants of the broken lightbulb and suck my thumb and find the white knight to throw a rope around me and drag me out of the mud. He could even drag me behind the horse if he wanted - I'd hate to sully his armor with the poison scum I've rubbed against my dress.

Help me, this kitchen floor has become quicksand and my brain is a whirlpool that I'm lost inside.

Help me. You don't understand.

You couldn't possibly understand.

My pain. It's just brain chemistry. I didn't do anything to make myself like this. I just am. I was helpless to prevent it.

It's not like brain chemistry is a direct result of how you process reality. It's not like the brain is an open system, interrelated with everything in existence, operating to change depending on stimuli and your interpretation of stimuli.

It's probably just a coincidence that the people who are depressed universally all seem to have cognitive distortions, bad coping mechanisms, poor life choices, and tragedies.

After all, you have everything you could want, but you're still unhappy. You have people that love you, but it's not enough. You have money, and a bed to sleep in. So you must just be broken. SAY IT WITH ME. B R O K E N.

Doesn't it feel good to just accept it? To stop trying? Some people just don't get to be happy, after all. Feel the tension collapse a little in your shoulders when you dive down into the darkness, stick your head into the shadow and let it dissolve from your neck. Look, you could be invisible.

I spilled my heart and I licked the scum that was on its edges.I cried into the golden bowl that became my hands and drank it back. I became my own feedback loop of pain.

But that wasn't my fault.

No, of course it wasn't.

Because reality wasn't real. What I perceived was real. It's not true that reality is a bedrock and our perception can change of reality, but reality itself doesn't change. Reality is different for everyone. And if I think something - it has to be true.

And I think I'm broken. Scum. Evil. My brain tells me that, so it must be true. And there's nothing I can do to move my hands of my own volition, to climb off the wall, and fix this.

Of course I can't fix that.

So you're right. I couldn't possibly understand.

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