Misconceptions

My boss knows I've been having some issues, he knows I've been suicidal a lot this year. And he's sympathetic, for the most part. But something he said when we had a little chat last week really emphasized how he (and entirely too many other people) views depression.

Because he said, "[Working] is better for you than, I don't know, sitting around feeling sorry for yourself all day." And I think that's how a lot of people view depression. I think that's why a lot of people don't see it as a real disease, why a lot of people have no sympathy for the depressed. So let me tell you a little bit about what depression is really like, for me, and for many others.

Well, for me, mostly. Not all depressions are similar, and some change hour to hour, minute to minute. But here is how mine usually goes.

Think of the most tired you've ever been. Maybe you spent a hard day at work or at play; maybe you wore out your brain or your body. Think about how you can't even imagine doing one more thing that day. Think of how heavy your limbs are, how impossible it is to concentrate because you're just so very exhausted. But then you go to bed and when you wake up in the morning, you feel all better. That's how I feel all day, every day. Except when I wake up (if I've slept), I don't feel better. I feel just as exhausted and apathetic at the beginning of my day as somebody who climbed mountains all day feels at the end of theirs.

It has nothing to do with feeling sorry for myself. It really has nothing to do with feeling sad (most of the time. Depressions, as I've said, vary.). Depression for me is bone-deep weariness, the lack of energy to do anything or even to feel anything. I'm not sitting around being sad all day. I'm staring at the wall because the effort required to read a book or play a video game is too much for me. Every day that I do manage to get up and get dressed in my uniform and make it to work, through work, and back from work is a major accomplishment for me. And people don't understand that, because for the "average" person, holding down a job is baseline. It's the least you can do. Their day starts at the end of their shift; my shift is my entire day, not because I'm working 12 hours a day, but because the effort I make to find the energy to just be able to function at work is astronomical. I come home as tired as if I'd spent my whole shift running laps because every little thing that "normal" people do without thinking is something I have to work to accomplish.

So yeah, boss, working is better for me than sitting around feeling sorry for myself. If only that was what I was doing.