The Battle of the Mind
The struggle with depression is rough. You can have the wheels on and feel like everything is going well and the smallest thing throws you off. It can be something inconsequential but it triggers feelings, that triggers other feelings and quickly you fall off the rails.
If I am being 100% transparent there are a lot of things about my life, I’m not happy about. I would say there are more things that I am unhappy about than I am happy about. Over the last couple of years, I’ve worked hard to not focus on that. I have worked hard to focus on being more accepting of things and appreciating the things that I do have.
As hard as I work, setbacks seem impossible for me to avoid. I have a good few months and then something happens that causes a setback.
Recently I was hanging out with someone for a couple of weeks, and I thought it was going well. After years and years of terrible luck with women I thought maybe I had finally found something that had a chance. Who knows what that chance was, could have been six more weeks, six more months or six more years? It was way too early to think about anything like that. Then what felt like a random 180 degree turn happened. We went from thinking this had a chance to being told “I don’t see this going anywhere.”
Now here is why I say depression is rough. I can sit here and honestly tell you that the logical side of my brain was fine with this. I thought it sucked because I thought maybe it had a chance and I finally met someone who seemed normal (lol) but I was fine. I had only known her for a few weeks. I was still getting to know her. There were no deep feelings. There were hardly any feelings at all.
The scary part is what happens after. The other part of my brain takes over. The thoughts start.
“Is something ever going to workout for me dating wise ever again?”
“Am I always going to be alone?”
“Why does nothing ever workout for me?”
Those thoughts start running through your brain and then they trigger more thoughts. Thoughts about other aspects of my life start. “Other people make more money than me.” “Other people can afford to have a better life than me.” “Why do other people get to be happy, and I don’t?” It ends with the feeling of my lot in life is not to be happy. It is just to exist. I just must get through each day and then do it again. That is all there ever is for me. Existence. You are left desperately wanting the feeling of something good. It is an extraordinarily heavy feeling. When you combined that with the guilt that comes with the realization that some of the issues that plague me are my own fault, it can be crippling.
As you read this, I want to be clear about something. I am lucky. As dark as that may seem when you read it other people have it much worse than I do. There are many others that struggle with depression and other mental health disorders and think there is no way out other than to harm themselves. That’s not me. When I’m in the throws of it and at my darkest I definitely question what the point of going on is but I have never once had the urge or temptation to harm myself.
I also want to be clear about something else. As dark as some of this reads, I fully acknowledge that there are those out there that have it much worse than I do. My life in all reality is not near as bad as it feels at times. There again is why I say it is truly a battle of the mind. I can sit here and type this out and believe this here today. When it takes hold of me and I am at my darkest and emptiest I feel the opposite.
I mentioned setbacks earlier. What I have learned over the years trying to fight this is you cannot give into those setbacks. You must do what you can to get going back in the right direction. Even if that means doing it multiple times. Find something that helps you battle these feelings and throw yourself into it.
For me that is the gym. For other people it could be something different. If I start my day in the gym getting my body going and my mind working on something positive, it helps. I had a rough week mentally. The last two days I have got myself back to starting my day in the gym and can honestly say I am in a better place than I was. Does this mean this setback is completely over? I am not sure. I am not going to brazenly sit here and say yes right now. It does mean I am doing what I can do to get back on track. To get back to where I want to be mentally.
Mental Health is a battle. It is the battle of the logical part of your brain versus the emotional part of your brain. Typically, the brain is a balance between the logical and emotional. When the emotional takes over you lose that balance. Sometimes you win the fight for balance. Sometimes you lose. What you must do is quit. You must be willing to battle to get that balance back. Find the thing that helps you be willing to battle and use it.
If you know someone that truly struggles with mental health whether that’s depression, anxiety or something else do not tell them how to fix it. If you do not understand what they are going through that’s perfectly ok. Just show them empathy. Support their battle. Encourage them to do what they need to do to keep fighting.