Sunday, February 15, 2015
Reminder
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on top of the world - imagine dragons
In case you haven't noticed, I can interpret just about anything to be about depression - it's my special talent :)
here I will share what the song on top of the world by imagine dragons (whose lead singer dan reynolds has dealt with anxiety and depression read more here) has always meant to me
This is the most devastating part for people who have to deal with suicide - the abruptness)Then again it just depends on
How long of time is left for you
(I felt that I was always at the mercy of my depression, which could strike at any moment without warning. I never knew when the next unbearable moment would hit me, and when my desire to live would fade away to nothing. I was constantly living with the fact that maybe the next time it struck, I wouldn't have the strength to fight back, that I would finally give in to the seductive promises of escape that death offered. Every birthday was a celebration for me - I made it an entire year without giving in! I'd survived! I never believed I would make it to the next landmark.)
I've had the highest mountains
I’ve had the deepest rivers
You can have it all but life keeps moving
(My first semester of college in particular, I constantly had this image in my mind of a graph of emotional range, with the normal person symbolized by a mild-mannered little curvy line never straying far from the x-axis, with mine a wildly flamboyant sine curve that jutted off the graph, going from one extremity to the other dizzyingly fast. I hated having so little control and constantly being flung back and forth from devastatingly incapable of functioning to being ecstatic and drunk off life. I wondered constantly what it felt like to live within the confines of that teeny range I figured most people occupied, but eventually gave in to the fact that regardless of what my emotions were doing with me, time marched on and I would keep going regardless of where on the graph I was. Now that I've recovered, I exist only in the positive range, far above that limited little area where most live, my joy enhanced tenfold by my prior experiences.)
I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
Waiting on this for a while now
(It's been three years since I've felt this good for this long, and while that doesn't sound like a long time, it's been a lifetime. Or many, many lifetimes if you consider the number of times I nearly stopped living. I never imagined I was capable of maintaining this level of sanity for this length of time. Granted, it's been less than 36 days since I last seriously considered ending my own life, but it's the past 13 that have felt like another lifetime in itself - living in constant bliss for a couple weeks is indescribable after a thousand days of fighting for the will to live.)
Paying my dues to the dirt
(This line's a little harder to describe, but in my mind it's the nearly-obligatory focus on every existing flaw in the world when in a depressed state. I felt that to not acknowledge how shitty life was to live in a self-created illusion, and thus felt it was my duty to practically worship everything I hated about humanity and society.)
I’ve been waiting to smile, ‘ay
Been holding it in for a while, ‘ay
(It took me 287 days to tell one person that I had an issue. I continued to fake happiness to all my friends for a long time thereafter. I still have yet to tell many of my closest friends that anything was ever wrong with me.)
Take you with me if I can
Been dreaming of this since a child
I've been dealing with depression from the age of 15, so it's kind of strange to realize I've made it to adulthood because at that time I never dreamed of living this long. I also never believed I could truly be completely ok like I am in this particular moment.
I’m on top of the world.
There is literally no way to describe how incredible feels to be able to say, "Hey, I'm a functional human being right now!" Sometimes it's hard to believe so few people have experienced the complete elation of extreme satisfaction with life after feeling like you couldn't live another minute. There is no feeling like being in love with simply living after months of hating everything about your life and yourself.
Try to take the easy way out
There are so many times I wanted to escape more than anything. I've carried death in my back pocket like a security blanket, reassuring me there was a way out if I couldn't handle it anymore. I hated the fact that this would have implications, that I couldn't simply cease to exist without implications - I hated people for caring about me and whether I was alive or not.
I kept on falling short of something
And yet for some reason I've gotten back up every time, and each time I want to give up, I think of all the times I've wanted to in the past, and what I would've missed out on if I had. Whenever I am truly happy in a moment, I make a mental note to my future self that such feelings are possible, so I can pull out that moment the next time I think life isn't worth living.
Then again I couldn’t have ’cause
I’ve traveled all this way for something
These two lines have kept me going ever since I first heard the song. Eerily, this song (and demons) came out the year I came down with depression. I have to remind myself of all the times I've overcome the desire to give up and hope I can muster up the courage to keep going. Because there's always the danger of framing my experiences instead in the view of "I've wanted to give up so many times now, I may as well just end it now and quit this cycle. It's about time I finally did what I've wanted to do so many times." It's the belief that I've made it through so much for a reason that is vital to get me through another rough patch.
I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
Waiting on this for a while now
Paying my dues to the dirt
I’ve been waiting to smile, ‘ay
Been holding it in for a while, ‘ay
Take you with me if I can
Been dreaming of this since a child
I’m on top of the world.
I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
Waiting on this for a while now
Paying my dues to the dirt
I’ve been waiting to smile, ‘ay
Been holding it in for a while, ‘ay
Take you with me if I can
Been dreaming of this since a child
And it’s a long way up when you hit the ground
Get up now, get up, get up now.
And it’s a long way up when you hit the ground
Get up now, get up, get up now.
I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
Waiting on this for a while now
Paying my dues to the dirt
I’ve been waiting to smile, ‘ay
Been holding it in for a while, ‘ay
Take you with me if I can
Been dreaming of this since a child
I’m on top of the world.
here I will share what the song on top of the world by imagine dragons (whose lead singer dan reynolds has dealt with anxiety and depression read more here) has always meant to me
If you love somebody
Better tell them while they’re here ’cause
They just may run away from you
(I used to be able to convince myself that no one would miss me if I died. This is the most devastating part for people who have to deal with suicide - the abruptness)Then again it just depends on
How long of time is left for you
(I felt that I was always at the mercy of my depression, which could strike at any moment without warning. I never knew when the next unbearable moment would hit me, and when my desire to live would fade away to nothing. I was constantly living with the fact that maybe the next time it struck, I wouldn't have the strength to fight back, that I would finally give in to the seductive promises of escape that death offered. Every birthday was a celebration for me - I made it an entire year without giving in! I'd survived! I never believed I would make it to the next landmark.)
I've had the highest mountains
I’ve had the deepest rivers
You can have it all but life keeps moving
(My first semester of college in particular, I constantly had this image in my mind of a graph of emotional range, with the normal person symbolized by a mild-mannered little curvy line never straying far from the x-axis, with mine a wildly flamboyant sine curve that jutted off the graph, going from one extremity to the other dizzyingly fast. I hated having so little control and constantly being flung back and forth from devastatingly incapable of functioning to being ecstatic and drunk off life. I wondered constantly what it felt like to live within the confines of that teeny range I figured most people occupied, but eventually gave in to the fact that regardless of what my emotions were doing with me, time marched on and I would keep going regardless of where on the graph I was. Now that I've recovered, I exist only in the positive range, far above that limited little area where most live, my joy enhanced tenfold by my prior experiences.)
I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
Waiting on this for a while now
(It's been three years since I've felt this good for this long, and while that doesn't sound like a long time, it's been a lifetime. Or many, many lifetimes if you consider the number of times I nearly stopped living. I never imagined I was capable of maintaining this level of sanity for this length of time. Granted, it's been less than 36 days since I last seriously considered ending my own life, but it's the past 13 that have felt like another lifetime in itself - living in constant bliss for a couple weeks is indescribable after a thousand days of fighting for the will to live.)
Paying my dues to the dirt
(This line's a little harder to describe, but in my mind it's the nearly-obligatory focus on every existing flaw in the world when in a depressed state. I felt that to not acknowledge how shitty life was to live in a self-created illusion, and thus felt it was my duty to practically worship everything I hated about humanity and society.)
I’ve been waiting to smile, ‘ay
Been holding it in for a while, ‘ay
(It took me 287 days to tell one person that I had an issue. I continued to fake happiness to all my friends for a long time thereafter. I still have yet to tell many of my closest friends that anything was ever wrong with me.)
Take you with me if I can
Been dreaming of this since a child
I've been dealing with depression from the age of 15, so it's kind of strange to realize I've made it to adulthood because at that time I never dreamed of living this long. I also never believed I could truly be completely ok like I am in this particular moment.
I’m on top of the world.
There is literally no way to describe how incredible feels to be able to say, "Hey, I'm a functional human being right now!" Sometimes it's hard to believe so few people have experienced the complete elation of extreme satisfaction with life after feeling like you couldn't live another minute. There is no feeling like being in love with simply living after months of hating everything about your life and yourself.
Try to take the easy way out
There are so many times I wanted to escape more than anything. I've carried death in my back pocket like a security blanket, reassuring me there was a way out if I couldn't handle it anymore. I hated the fact that this would have implications, that I couldn't simply cease to exist without implications - I hated people for caring about me and whether I was alive or not.
I kept on falling short of something
And yet for some reason I've gotten back up every time, and each time I want to give up, I think of all the times I've wanted to in the past, and what I would've missed out on if I had. Whenever I am truly happy in a moment, I make a mental note to my future self that such feelings are possible, so I can pull out that moment the next time I think life isn't worth living.
Then again I couldn’t have ’cause
I’ve traveled all this way for something
These two lines have kept me going ever since I first heard the song. Eerily, this song (and demons) came out the year I came down with depression. I have to remind myself of all the times I've overcome the desire to give up and hope I can muster up the courage to keep going. Because there's always the danger of framing my experiences instead in the view of "I've wanted to give up so many times now, I may as well just end it now and quit this cycle. It's about time I finally did what I've wanted to do so many times." It's the belief that I've made it through so much for a reason that is vital to get me through another rough patch.
I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
Waiting on this for a while now
Paying my dues to the dirt
I’ve been waiting to smile, ‘ay
Been holding it in for a while, ‘ay
Take you with me if I can
Been dreaming of this since a child
I’m on top of the world.
I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
Waiting on this for a while now
Paying my dues to the dirt
I’ve been waiting to smile, ‘ay
Been holding it in for a while, ‘ay
Take you with me if I can
Been dreaming of this since a child
And it’s a long way up when you hit the ground
Get up now, get up, get up now.
And it’s a long way up when you hit the ground
Get up now, get up, get up now.
I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
Waiting on this for a while now
Paying my dues to the dirt
I’ve been waiting to smile, ‘ay
Been holding it in for a while, ‘ay
Take you with me if I can
Been dreaming of this since a child
I’m on top of the world.
You’ll never know quite when, well
I’ve had the highest mountains
I take it in but don’t look down
‘Cause I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
I’ve tried to cut these corners
I coulda gave up then but
I take it in but don’t look down
‘Cause I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
Oooooooo... OoooAhhhhhOoooAhhhhh[2x]
‘Cause I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
And I know it’s hard when you’re falling down
And I know it’s hard when you’re falling down
‘Cause I’m on top of the world, ‘ay
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Daily Surprises
Unpredictability is easily one of the most terrifying aspects of depression. After living with the disorder for a certain period of time, you come to feel you've lost all control over your life. Every night you go to bed, wondering which version of yourself you'll wake up to. Every day is a gamble in what I'll face: the devastation of paralyzing hopelessness, or the glee of being a fully functional unimpaired, energetic human being bursting with enthusiasm. But don't let me mislead you into thinking depression has any regard for such neat boundaries: It doesn't change on a day-by-day basis, but rather hour by hour, leaving its victim swinging recklessly by a thin thread from one extreme to another, covering a full spectrum of experiences in the average week. One day you're left with the undeniable conviction that all effort to find meaning is futile and are utterly convinced your existence is entirely insignificant, and the next you find yourself with a devil-may-care attitude, unable to find the motivation to care where life takes you, regardless of direction. And then there are those precious fleeting moments of being absolutely on top of the world, living the kind of high only someone who's been so low could ever understand, feeling as though you can conquer the world and have limitless energy and love to share.
Just a couple days ago, I slept through class (I had never in my life skipped a class in my life before that instance) because I just couldn't find it in me to walk to the lecture that had completely captivated me the previous week, bringing the hours I spent asleep within 24 hours close to 15. And here I am now at 6:30 in the morning, not having slept in 24 hours. I went to bed several hours ago but have been too happy to sleep. I'm actually excited to see how much work I can make up this weekend from the past week wasted in either paralyzing hopelessness or toxic lack of motivation. Instead of sleeping, I've mapped out every second of the coming week, figuring out a precise strategy for getting back on top of work. (Last semester I was so neurotic about getting things done in time that I always worked a week ahead of deadlines.)
The timid blue daylight is trying to creep in around my shade, but sleep is the last thing on my mind. Instead I'm thinking about the day I turned 18, a milestone in my life I never imagined I'd live to see. With the seductive promise of death as an escape from my problems creeping into my thoughts on a weekly basis, it's a fair estimate to claim that I've survived lethal thoughts on around 140 occasions in which it would have been easier to convince myself to put an end to all this craziness. (I know, I know, I should wait another 10 days to post this, but who knows what state I'll be in that day?!)
Who knows, maybe I've only got a few hours left until I crash into a pit of lethargy and impairment, but until then, I'm enjoying this brief moment of basking in the glory of having made it this far. In moments like these, I always want to send a letter to every person who's helped me through the past two and a half years by showing how much they cared about me. Every smile counts. Every little scrap of encouragement is of the utmost importance - these tiny gestures of proving the worth of my existence are what keep me anchored to this earth in those moments, and it's often those who would never guess what I'm going through that keep me alive.
You never know when you might save someone's life with a smile! :)
Just a couple days ago, I slept through class (I had never in my life skipped a class in my life before that instance) because I just couldn't find it in me to walk to the lecture that had completely captivated me the previous week, bringing the hours I spent asleep within 24 hours close to 15. And here I am now at 6:30 in the morning, not having slept in 24 hours. I went to bed several hours ago but have been too happy to sleep. I'm actually excited to see how much work I can make up this weekend from the past week wasted in either paralyzing hopelessness or toxic lack of motivation. Instead of sleeping, I've mapped out every second of the coming week, figuring out a precise strategy for getting back on top of work. (Last semester I was so neurotic about getting things done in time that I always worked a week ahead of deadlines.)
The timid blue daylight is trying to creep in around my shade, but sleep is the last thing on my mind. Instead I'm thinking about the day I turned 18, a milestone in my life I never imagined I'd live to see. With the seductive promise of death as an escape from my problems creeping into my thoughts on a weekly basis, it's a fair estimate to claim that I've survived lethal thoughts on around 140 occasions in which it would have been easier to convince myself to put an end to all this craziness. (I know, I know, I should wait another 10 days to post this, but who knows what state I'll be in that day?!)
Who knows, maybe I've only got a few hours left until I crash into a pit of lethargy and impairment, but until then, I'm enjoying this brief moment of basking in the glory of having made it this far. In moments like these, I always want to send a letter to every person who's helped me through the past two and a half years by showing how much they cared about me. Every smile counts. Every little scrap of encouragement is of the utmost importance - these tiny gestures of proving the worth of my existence are what keep me anchored to this earth in those moments, and it's often those who would never guess what I'm going through that keep me alive.
You never know when you might save someone's life with a smile! :)
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