your depression is making you selfish

your depression is making you selfish. you heard that right.

i recently started taking a medication called escitalopram (street name lexapro), and it’s been going good. great, actually. i don't have constant anxiety. i don't have constant and unexplained thoughts of me getting hit by cars or falling to my inevitable paralysis. but i can’t shake this feeling of dissatisfaction. i have no appetite, i want to drink all the time, i want to skip my dance classes simply because i have no current interest. i want to ignore or block all my friends, and at the same time have them constantly surround me so i can talk about all the things i hate about myself. every last inch. admittedly, i always have always struggled with this feeling of dissatisfaction. when i thought college was going to be my great escape, then when that didn’t go perfectly i dreamed of escaping to adulthood where i can enact real change in the world. this is a constant problem with me. it’s messed up. but every once in a while it’s more than that.

i know the meds are working because i'm fighting these feelings of self-doubt and nihilism. lately depression feels like a dark shadowy figure hiding around the corner, waiting in my peripheral vision for the right moment to strike.

i have a little bug in my brain that tells me that i don’t care what happens to me. i’m unmotivated and don’t want to work on anything because i just want to do nothing and wither away. but that’s not true. i have dreams. i want to be published. i want to live in chicago. i want to fall in love. i want to graduate. i want amazing things. but i don’t want to work for them. because i don’t care what happens to me. is that normal? am i just selfish because i’m a privileged asshole? how do i make it stop? and before you call me lazy, it’s not just that i don’t want to do things. i wake up and i get the urge to simply disappear. one les problem for my loved ones to deal with and not even remember happened. shirk all responsibilities and lose everything around me so i have no choice but to turn to dust. because i don’t care what happens to me.

there are people far more interesting than me. and it’s hard to accept that that’s okay. there are people who experienced more, are more curious, and ventured farther than me. i kind of hate that, because i set my individuality up as the thing that makes me worthy of being alive. there’s a war that happens in my mind when i meet people like this. i want to soak up their interestingness to understand more about the world, but this reminds me of what could’ve been if i had been more curious and adventurous like them.

people around me say i’m simple. they say i do nothing all day. i fear that i’m a little bit boring. that’s my biggest fear in the world. if i’m boring then i’m nothing. if i’m boring then i’m a waste of space and i don’t deserve to be alive. i take steps—looking back on it, baby steps—in an attempt to be and feel alive.

once in high school i went cliff diving. i was the first to jump. and that made me feel really good, to be the friend that jumped off the cliff and didn’t completely know what was going to happen yet. later that night i pictured that jump intercepted by trips on rocks on the way down and my skull cracking open at the bottom. i later learned that’s anxiety.

maybe my anxiety makes me boring. i worry about the next step and the consequences of it. i picture myself slipping down the mountains my friends want to climb and getting into trouble down the streets my friends want to walk. i live in fear, and i hate it. i want to be exciting and have stories of mistakes turned into memories and risks i’ve outlived. so i can’t even think of fun “side quests” to take my friends on through adventurous nights out. i wish i could come up with more interesting things, but i can’t. maybe i’ll live my life like the rest of the boring people. maybe i won’t turn out like the people i read about, and that scares me to death. but logically—and maybe this is the lexapro talking—i know that the experiences i have are inherently special because they’re mine. i like to surround myself with interesting people because i know they will bring me to interesting experiences, and i can live as an onlooker and occasional participant, but i feel this hunger inside for something more, a something i don’t know how to feed.

the diaries of a depressed 22 year old ( I look really good here but looks can be deceiving)

i used to think that i didn’t really like people that much. small talk, making new friends—i thought that these things were reserved for other people who enjoyed it and were better at the art of conversation than i was. but over the past few years i’ve learned that i don’t think that’s true. i love making new friends and having adventures for fun and not just for a fleeting attempt at feeling alive. i want to do so many things, and every once in a while when this feeling comes around i forget that. i want to live and i want to waste away. how can two things be true at the same time? as a journalist i search for the truth in everything and value it above all else. so it’s frustrating, to say the least, when you don’t even know the truth about yourself. but maybe i don’t have to know right now. maybe i should just focus on doing the best i can every day and trying to get better. go to school, hang out with friends, save money, drink tea, sit in the sunshine. sometimes truth is relative. if i have to live this life, i might as well make it a good one. how to make it a good one, i have a relative idea of.

when i visited my therapist just the other day, i told her i wished there was a magical and specific test that told me exactly if i had depression, like when you visit the doctor and they swab you for the flu. and just as those words escaped my lungs i thought of—because my mind moves a mile a minute—that test they give you at the beginning of a doctor’s visit. do you feel little interest in doing things? down, depressed, or hopeless? feeling tired or having little energy? poor appetite or overeating? i guess that’s as close as i’ll get, without a brain scan, to a conclusion. some people tell me i’m depressed and anxious and some people tell me i need to have perspective. and either way i absolutely need to have perspective. because my depression is making me selfish. i’m thinking about myself and my own problems and despairs constantly and i don’t want to. i want to feel alive without thinking about my own sense of self. maybe that’s just human nature, to think about your own condition when standing at the top of a mountain. i would rather think about the vastness of the world than my own small, very minute place in it.

i’ve known that i’ve wanted to be a writer since i was in 5th grade. and since then i knew i wanted to be great. i can’t be great from my bed. so that’s what gets me up in the morning, even though most days i don’t want to. on those days i feel my depression slipping in, i choose to ignore my wish for greatness as i feel the comfort of my bones sinking into my bedframe. i don’t want that. i’m fighting it. i’m grateful for the fight. it means I have something worth fighting for. even if it’s boring and unimportant i will believe it’s with fighting for. but the fear of the fight leading to a destitute, lame life keeps me locked inside my bedroom. why fight destiny. but you can change your destiny. at least i think so. at least i want to.

xoxo