Do you know how sometimes the world seems to be caving in? How the weight of the world weighs down so heavily on you that you feel the weight press into your shoulders, feel your back bend and feel your knees give out? How even doing the stuff you love the most like watching that one favourite movie does not make you smile, does not even slightly lift the corner of your mouth because it feels too exhausting? How meeting up with friends feels so tiring and daunting that you keep cancelling on them until no one asks whether you want to grab a coffee anymore? How you realise that your family never calls you because you're always the one calling them and then talking their ears off until they find a reason to end the call? How even in a room full of people you feel so lonely that this awareness slowly closes your throat up, squeezes your chest and suffocates you? How the voice inside your head tells you these malicious lies about how everyone is fed up with you and your antics, how no one wants to hear how your day has been, how no one really cares about what's happening to you? How it feels to wish that all of these thoughts would just stop and you could start liking yourself instead of keep walking on this self-destructive path that slowly but steadily kills your soul inch by inch?

Well, that's what it feels like to me. Maybe someone else feels it differently, affects it differently. This darkness. This nothingness. This blanket of inherent loneliness. This crushing weight that pushes you into the ground until you don't have the strength anymore to get up again.

This is what my depression feels like. (There, I said that word that everyone seems to be so afraid of.) How it affects me. (At least most of the time because sometimes it manifests differently. But that's another story.)

And people keep saying that you just have to work harder and believe in yourself to overcome this illness. That you just have to smile and your brain will automatically release the happy hormones. That the world is not as bad as you keep picturing it. I wish it was that easy. If the voice inside your head keeps telling you that your worthless and that you will never achieve anything, never have any meaningful relationships, that people only interact with you because they want something from you – or worse – because they have to, like your colleagues and your family, how are you supposed to believe in yourself? How are you supposed to build the confidence to withstand this monster in your head that keeps on tearing these fleeting attemps down every chance it gets? You should just smile and the rest is biology, right? You can smile an entire day and the only thing you will feel afterwards are not the endorphins rushing through your body but rather your facial muscles hurting from the make believe, from the mask you're putting on as soon as you have to interact with people. Make believing other people that nothing is wrong with you, that you are not having a mental crisis that brings you to your knees, that everything is just peachy. And how could you picture a better world when you keep running in circles, keep running into your self-fulfilling prophecies of loneliness and isolation?

Don't you think that at the beginning I didn't see everything so gloomy, so dark? That maybe my experiences have shaped me and my opinion; made me a realist. No. That's a lie. I keep telling people that I only think realistically when in reality even I can see that I am pessimistic. Why I lie? Because it's easier to accommodate what I say then to explain why I see it that way. People don't want to have to deal with depressed people and their view of the world because they think that they have an obligation to make this person feel better somehow. It's depressing, really. I mean I wouldn't want to have to deal with it if I was not already patient D. I get it. So that's why I lie. I don't want to stress people, don't want them doing or saying things just to make me feel better without meaning any of it. Or is this just the voice inside my head, manipulating me so I won't reach for an offered hand when I feel myself going under again? When you can't even trust your own mind then who do you trust? It's mindboggling and sometimes it feels like pressing a self-destruction button like in these old movies. 10, 9, 8,…

But why do I write this? Why do I somehow force you to read this, to deal with this matter?

Because there are many people like me who stay face- and voiceless in this world, who suffer just the same and maybe after reading my story you will see the signs and be able to read them, to help the person displaying them. Or maybe you feel similar and see that you're not alone in this; that there are other people who suffer like you; that maybe life is not as miserable and that maybe there can be a silver lining. Or maybe you will read it and see it as an angst-ridden story of a self-centred kid who thinks that their suffering is so important that others must read about it. Really, it's your own choice how you want to read this or what you want to take out of it.

But yeah, I also write this for purely selfish reasons. I need to get this off my chest. I need someone else to see life through my eyes, to understand why the things happened the way they happened.

So, it all began even before I was born…

AN: Woah. Hello there. I had this plot ghosting around in my head for… seven years now. And yes, this is going to be a depressing, angsty story with some comic relief (I hope). And yes, I know what depression feels like because I have been suffering from depression for the past 13 years. But as I also stated in the story, every person might feel the effects of depression differently. Please look for help if you're feeling depressed and don't know what to do about it. It's hard to ask for help but there are many people out there.

Something less angsty: I need someone to proofread and maybe to look for plot holes and stuff. So if you would like to work with me and this dark but honest story please contact me. I would really appreciate it.

Your Clumsy Bedo (gosh I should maybe change my alias)