Hope

I’m tired. I’m tired because it’s 1:00 am. I’m tired of being who I am. I’m tired of the same stuff triggering me time and time again. I’m tired of waking up every day to the same world, and the same problems. I’m tired of pretending to be ok, and I’m tired of not being ok. But strangely, I’m not tired of living (at least not right now). No, that feeling will almost certainly come again later, if not tomorrow then sometime later this week, but for now, I’m ok with living.

My week has been full of triggers. I failed a classmate, I had days at work where my performance was less than ideal, and I let a friend down. Every day someone in my life has told me that I am worthless. I already believe this to be true about myself, but it hurts just as badly every time I hear it. Somehow, the person from the one friend group where I ever felt I truly belonged telling me I’m worth nothing, hurt just the same as hearing it from a man who I spent two days working for and will never have to work for again.

It’s funny though. As I type that, I find myself thinking “Why? How is it possible that I am not tired of living?” I don’t know the answer to those questions. I don’t know if anyone does. All I know is that today I’m ok. Maybe I’m not ok with being ok, but that’s just how messed up I am.

Maybe what I am most tired of is not getting better, despite it being the one thing I want more than anything. I’ve taken the steps. I’ve told my parents I’m hurting, I talk to my school social worker, I go to a psychologist, I have friends who know I’m not ok and they all try to help me, but I’m not getting any better. So what now?

The answer to this is simple (although it took me a few days to come up with it nonetheless): to get better, I need to believe I can. I wrote last week about seeing a light at the end of a tunnel, and while that is true sometimes, for very small fragments of time, what I need to work on is being able to see that light, even when I’m in the darkest of places. The more I can work at that, the easier it will be for me to make it through tough times. The days during which I’ve felt like giving up, are not the days I feel I cannot get worse, but the days I feel I cannot get better. They’re the days where I feel as though no matter how hard I try, the road ahead is so twisted and bumpy and narrow that it would be better to just stop trying entirely. However, if I can manage to see light even on those days, if I can learn to see that no situation is entirely hopeless, I might stand a chance. 

I once told a friend “hope is my biggest trigger,” but I don’t think that’s true. What I think I really meant was that without hope, every trigger is amplified tenfold. So here is a goal not only for myself, but also for anyone else struggling with depression this summer: work towards maintaining hope, even in the darkest of times. Let us all help each other make it through to the other side. I am willing to be there for anyone who needs someone, just contact me through Twitter, Ask.fm or email. You never have to be alone. You never have to be without hope.

-Mr. Not Ok