They don’t understand!

Content/Trigger WARNING: Anxiety | Depression | Suicide

Depression - REAL depression is a mental disorder. It is DIFFERENT from being emotional and illogical as a reaction towards an event. People don’t take it seriously because they don’t understand. They don’t understand because many have used the term incorrectly so frequently that people think it’s just “being sad”. IT IS NOT! Depression episodes occur even when nothing bad or negative happens to a person with this disorder. They just snap. It’s that feeling of not being able to control your own brain - your own voice arguing with yourself and feeding you with bad and negative thoughts about random things or just about everything and anything. You struggle to get your own brain back from these voices - your own voices!

I am a highly functional individual. One who is very productive, educated, professional, and I would say I’ve achieved things and would achieve many more. I have nothing to complain about in my life. BUT I AM NOT OKAY. The people around me, my family, my boyfriend, my friends - THEY ALL DON’T UNDERSTAND what I’m going through. Episodes that last for a week - just crying, fighting voices, talking to myself, not feeling hungry. 

Why did I become like this? Who is to blame? Science? The chemicals in my brain? Probably. Or straight-up yes. And I’ve had a difficult childhood. Grew up in a very problematic household where I rarely feel love. With all that I’ve been through, people say that I should be proud I overcame all the challenges. But all those hardships traumatized me. They made paranoid. They caused me an anxiety disorder. I have this haunting fear of the uncertain. And I cannot live a normal and happy life. BUT AGAIN, PEOPLE AROUND ME DO NOT UNDERSTAND THAT. I can’t even understand it myself. All these voices, all the fighting over my brain, it’s so difficult. I don’t know what to do anymore. The easiest option is just to give up and just kill myself - and then my suffering in this world would end. Or I can be strong and fight my demons - but I can’t! I’m trying and struggling and suffering. I’m going crazy! I am going crazy! I appreciate words of support, positive words, hugs, kisses - BUT THAT’S NOT GONNA CURE ME! I need medical attention but who cares? They all think I’m okay. No one understands. I just stare into the ceiling and contemplate - is this the right time to give up? How should I do it? Overdose? Hang myself? I want to shoot myself so it’s quick but I don’t have a gun. Or should I just wait it out and spend all my energy to pretend to be normal and just be okay and fine and just one day end it?

Sometimes, you can save someone from themselves. But most often, you can save someone simply because you do not understand what they are going through - and most of the time, you will never ever understand - just like nobody understands me. I will just have to continue suffering until death decides it’s time to end.

Photo from https://www.psycom.net/depression-definition-dsm-5-diagnostic-criteria/

Fight Anxiety

It has been my rule in life to never expect something good to avoid disappointments. However, no matter how hard we try not to expect, hope still exists. I always tell myself to hope for the best but expect the worst. But this sounds easier than done. No matter how much we convince ourselves that everything will be okay, still there's a little corner out there filled with anxiety. As far as I can remember, being anxious has been part of my personality since childhood. For some reasons, it's so easy for me to be worried and sometimes paranoid with the things happening around me. People who are very close to me who have known me since I was young tell me that I am idealistic that's why I always take things seriously and this is the reason why I always get anxious. I don't want to accept it but I am. If possible, I want things to be perfect and I want them to happen according to what I think is ideal. And when things go wrong or in a different direction as I am, then I get frustrated. Even though I am trying my best to change but it's difficult. I just want everything to be organized. It is so hard for me to put into reality that the world is composed of people with their own will and things happen according to the will of God.

At this moment, I remember the verse from the Bible that says:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

Matthew 6: 25-33

I know these things that I feel are God's challenges to me that I have to face and conquer.  I have to believe that God believes in me and that I will be able to surpass His trials.
Sometimes, God let us suffer so that we can remember that we are not supernaturals, we are humans and we need Him.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30 

There had been several times that things did not happen according to my will and I asked God why. I was not able to get the answer right away but as the time goes by, God is eventually answering me.

No matter how much we plan for our lives, God will always have the best plan for us.