The Difficulty in Dealing with Declining Depression

Depression itself is difficult, obviously. It’s just really bad. It is a serious ailment that prevents [or seriously impedes] the ability to apply treatment to the ailment itself. Imagine if you had a cold, and the cold prevented you from taking vitamin C. What if you had an infection, and the infection prevented you from taking antibiotics? That’s [partly] what depression does. There are some things that [can] alleviate [some of] the effects of depression. Regular exercise, healthy diet, and spending time outside can help. And what does depression prevent you from doing? Exercise, eating right, and going outside. It’s fucked!

And I know these things aren’t “cures,” and I’m not saying, “Depressed? Just go exercise bro. HA!” So shut the fuck up before commenting that.

Anyway, depression is fucked. It’s horrible, and there are a lot of other shitty aspects to it that I haven’t mentioned here. They’re well documented. What I really want to write about is this unexpected difficulty that I’ve experienced during a period of relatively declining depression. Wow, kinda convoluted wording there, sorry about that. How about this: I was very depressed, recently I’ve been doing a lot better, but I’ve met some difficulties in this transition that I didn’t expect. 

I’ve had a few periods of fairly severe depression, one of which almost resulted in my death. There were periods in which I was doing pretty well, and then the depression would come back. There were ups and downs, peaks and valleys, the great rollercoaster of life. Quite poetic, as all life should be. And it was rollercoaster-esque. Lots of ups and downs quite quickly. But the last few years I’ve been on a “long haul to recovery,” as I call it. It’s more of a slow and steady increase in well-being. There are still setbacks, obviously, but it’s not as extreme. There has been an overall positive trendline. Maybe not a “line” in a “y=mx+b” sense of the word. Maybe more of a logarithmic function.

What I’m trying to say is that there’s been a steady decline in depression in my life. That’s great! It’s cause for celebration! I’m happy about it. There has been an unexpected struggle with it, though. So before my first serious period of depression, I had a certain identity, a certain idea of myself. It was based on my behavior, what I liked to do, what others liked about me, what others said about me, what I thought of myself, things I valued, my experiences, my strengths and weaknesses, etc. That’s who I was, or at least who I was in my own narrative version of myself. 

And who was that guy? Well, I thought of myself as a whimsical, clever, witty young man. Kind of a “fun and fancy free” type of fellow. I liked to say jokes and think interesting thoughts. I was curious, and I wanted to increase the amount of fun in the world. I liked to put interesting, fun, strange things out there, trying to make the world a more interesting place for whoever met me. You know, kind of a whimsical shithead. It was great.

Then the depression hit, and it seemed to create this cursed version of myself. I couldn’t be how I was. Sometimes I didn’t even want to do the things I used to enjoy. I wasn’t really contributing anything positive, I felt, and of course I was aware of all of this, this degraded version of myself, and that made me feel even worse, and I spiraled down. Very bad. Bad! But now I’m doing pretty well. I’m excited. I’m thinking, “Finally! That cursed version of me is so insignificant now. I gotta get back to my true self!” I’ve had this desire to recapture my old, whimsical self for this new era. I’ve been trying to get back to the “real me,” but it doesn’t really work that way. I can’t actually do that. I’m trying to do the things I loved to do before, and act the way I did back then [or close to it], but it doesn’t really work the same way. I’m not the same. Some of the old stuff is great, some of the whimsical stuff, but not all of it, and it’s not the same. 

It’s tough, because there’s the old, whimsical me, the cursed/depressed me, and now there’s me. There’s a bit of both in the current me. Who knows, maybe I’m just trying to rewrite the Ship of Theseus. Oh! Or maybe all the parts of me, the whimsical, the cursed, and all the parts of those parts, have been strewn about, and my task now is to take the parts and forge them into something better, something stronger, like… I don’t know, what was Aragorn’s sword’s name in the Lord of the Rings? Bit odd that swords have names. You’d think they would just call it “Aragorn’s sword,” or I guess “Isildur’s sword” at the time. If I had a sword, it’d be called “Lefty Forrester’s Sword.” I guess we have done something comparable in modern times with “Fat Man” and “Little Boy.” 

Anyway, this new chapter of my life, though the depression is improving a lot, has still been difficult. It’s hard to find, maintain, and move forward with your identity after such a long period of battling with depression. Now, even though this is a difficult thing, I would in no way claim that it’s more difficult than actually dealing with the actual depression. Depression is monstrous, and it can devour you. I guess what I’m trying to say is that, even if you’re not really experiencing the depression directly any more, it can have lingering effects on yourself and your identity. It’s tough, but I’m here for you! Let me know how it’s going!