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! :)
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