A Passage

Some days are just miserable. But certain days are just much better, and I am not that suicidal or thinking too much about this comfortable escape, A.K.A. ending life itself. The key lies in having something to look forward to, also known as Hope. And I was/am often struggling on how to reach that point.

Depression is a difficult, long and tiring battle. It is something else, something different. It can stagnate your life to certain point and you must first admit that there is depression happening/perpetuating within you. The next thing is not to identify yourself with such illness. It is far from invalidating yourself, but to disallow yourself from lingering too long in such passage. So another thing I figured out after Attachment and Validity is Perpetuality. It happens that our mind works almost the same as what Newton's first law is stating; an object will remain at rest or in uniform motion unless it's acted upon by an external force. It's this very nature of our mind that defines how major this illness is.

Today I feel a lot better. It's because I've something to look forward to. I am looking to buy a new motorcycle, watching new anime and getting a new job. Been hyping myself for a while for this. Everything they said about not worrying too much is true, but anxiety apart, when you're depressed you can't see the end of it. So the key is on knowing what to do when you're in such passage.

So I have a reminder for myself when I am going through depression.
- It will pass.
- Songs that attach you to things you currently hyped with. For eg. one piece OSTs.

Mother

Today i finally opened up a bit with my mother. It went really well. Though I managed to divert every religious talk to my favor so it doesn't go as intense. We talked a lot about my social problems, I managed to have a bit of the control over the conversation.

I think I've never feel this different. I do not know how far it extends. But I can feel the production of endorphins flowing so hard now~

Next time I'll try to talk about something more real, about the depression, about the symptoms, about my plans to get better. I think I can be more, feel more, the more I feel better. I can feel it. I want to survive this beast. Allow me, universe, please.

Will and realization

I think I might've figured what the core of my problem is. I have the lack of will to live. Lack of desires. Lack of interests. I've been jobless for 1.5 years already. Most people will think about the luxury I have, when it was a 4 years of saving, living a life much without desire, about going anywhere in life. I could've bought a new car, or make a big down payment for a house if I wanted to at that time. You would've envied such luxury, think about a lot of things you can do with such saving. You would've called me stupid when I refused a salary raise of almost 3k. They even once offered me an equity. Was it because of fear of responsibility? Or anxiety of failure? Or maybe I just fear so much of reliving the voids and the undesirable life. I mention this so I don't dismiss how amazing they're and the opportunities I had.

But you wouldn't understand. Neither do I. I do not understand why I do not want more, why am I not desiring much. I do not understand why I stopped functioning those days, and why I can't function well. And I just don't really care about so many things. It's only a matter of time before I stopped caring about myself. I realized this before I quit the last job I had, but I did not know what it was, still do not. Those days were full of craving, voids, very recursive and empty. Of course anxieties about some uncertain future play a big part in my decision, and I have no regret about anything. And I am still figuring this shit, alone. If only I don't feel alone in this. I only wish that you understand. But I won't demand that you do as I understand that we all have our own problems. Maybe it's just the world as it is. Broken as we grow.

I realized nothing I can change about myself except making and living with this feeling bearable. Often I wished that life ends sooner, funny that I even lacking the desire to end myself. But deep down I know I want the opposite. I am working on it. I just do not want to come back to the life I know, still broken. I don't want to die yet. I want to live. I am working on it. I am just here buying time, trying something different, navigating trains of thoughts, putting the pieces together, amending rules I can live with. But I am running out of time. You don't have to bear my burden, just understanding will do. And if you do understand, please say that you do. 

Feeling normal

Normal is to me is like enjoying a constant stream of chilling music, 

Sometimes it's like staying in a dark and my mind is focused on enjoying something, because there's no distraction when you're in the dark.

Normal is like having a company, like family, and friends for the sake of enjoying being in company, although sometimes i can still feel normal being alone. 

Maybe normal is to me like having peace with myself. it's like not overthinking too much over your future, over what people think, what's good for your future what's not.

Depression is like monday blues, except that it's constant, or the moment that stream of chilling music end. I used to feel more like an impostor the more I compare myself with other, and I am dead wrong with that, and that's what I sometimes think when I see people coming out about their depression. I used to think like 'are they really depressed', and that's where I will be wrong at. Maybe we do it the wrong way to empathize, it's the reason why I can't tell why I am depressed when I feel normal. Depression is like a post-traumatic stream of empty experiences, a post-traumatic even about lost. and this lost can be of anything, even a minor part of life. It's like being stuck in yourself, contradicting. it's not hard to bring people to empathize, but it'll be dark to ask people for it.

I want to know more about depression. I want to find a way to beat this system. I want to know what to do when the music stop. Like making your brain chemical spike at your own command. Like making your own music in your head. Like turning it off with a single thought.

I feel like i am getting refined as I am closing to 30. This year will be my 30. I remember being so anxious about past 30. I don't think a lot about it when I feel normal now, in fact i don't feel that much worried about past 30 now. I used to think a lot about death. I think a lot imagining myself standing over an edge, and jumping it off, and it gives kind of calmness about the moment seconds before your eventual end, like it doesn't matter at all, nothing really matter. I teaches me more about life than the idea of ending life itself. I like to explore on this side of thought experiment. I feel like the more I embrace the idea of death, the more refined i feel about myself. Irony is, the thought about the end of all means, teaches us more about the means to live life differently. It's like reverse engineering the idea of death to discover more about life itself. I feel peace at it and this is what i want to feel everyday.

p/s : This post is actually an large excerpt of my reply to someone from befriender. Posting here since it expresses myself,

Embracing Death

Back when i was still working.. There're times where i would think all days about quitting, resigning.. Of course there were insecurities.. But the thought about there'll always be a way out is sometimes so comforting.. You can always quit when you're done with your job.. I had myself even crafted at least two long resign mails to my employer, long before my eventual resign.. It's like having your resign letter held with you all the time in your right pocket.. it can be comforting.. It's like a letter where you note down or your actual voice, reason for quitting, your sanity, in a letter.

But with life, when you're really done with it there's really nothing to escape to, or anything to write a letter to, what do you do.. I find the same idea about holding to the idea of quitting life so comforting... To embrace death is like, to embrace the other possibilities of life, life you're done with.. Suicide is an answer, of many possible answers. it's easier to pick one closer, and convenience, where reality/society provides you no easy quitting the life full of pretension, of securities, futures, social standing. Then when you remove one of these elements from the perfect equation of life society used to define with.. It feels different. Probably similar to other things, like marriage, relationship.. There're only possibilities, from the thought of embracing the ends.. And among possibilities there have to be ones that would make ourselves feel better..

Belong

I knew I was in a many episodes of depression. Sometimes I thought i was just an impostor when i compare myself to those who are hurting more. Now i know it was depression. Those years of emptiness, voids. I knew it was real. now i am on my way to figure the way out. I can see the way out, now i know what feeling better feels like. I've seen the light. It's like Sunday, where you embrace the mood of holiday, day without tiring thoughts. Where you belong in somewhere. I want to belong in somewhere. I belong in this life.

Limbo

I think about a lot of things during this hiatus. Mostly about making term on how to deal with the next decade, or whether or not there is life for me there. The thoughts that there’s really nothing for me to live for, for the next decade weren’t pleasant. Like when you’re done with your job, you’ll always think about quitting, for months, and the same with life. I had a lot of ‘that’ thoughts, that the worse one was when i wake up from slumber into a terrible thoughts about ways to end myself. But it’s getting better. I’ve came to the realization that part of all these messes were caused by the lack of attachment, or the need to anchor to what I used to believe, or the idea that there needs to be something to live for. It's a limbo, where you're stuck in an indecisive room.

Now I think i may be seeing a way out of this blankness. Something hits me the last two weeks ago, for a week. At first it was a physical numbness, or weakness that render your body's receptors to feel less than what it used to feel. Can't feel hungry, or pain much. It's like tiring, straining, so you don't feel anything more, but you can't feel that tired either. When I thought I was getting better the next two days, I had another extreme internal physical pain of something I've never ever felt before, I know it was my broken digestive system, but couldn't really tell which part of the body. And something came out of this. When you wished for less pain, do you wish for numbness, or lack of pleasure or feeling? I've made a realization that it wasn't god that causes pain or pleasure. It's just how the body works. And such version of god, or the need to anchor to what I used to believe in was starting to fade.

It couldn't confirms more about this agnostic faith.

Be Somewhere

I went to my ex colleague wedding today. And got to meet some familiar faces. I was kinda in between whether or not to go. Well that's me having fear of some social interaction for some reason. At times, it gives you some anxieties that render your mind helpless to depressing episode. But I chose to go. And I managed to survive the experience. It was great, that I feel like it was my purpose to be there, though I no longer belong in their company. I thought I would've given myself up to some anxious experience, but everything went normal.

The night before, I had one terrible episode of depression. I woke up to the most terrible feeling I've possibly ever had. I woke up to the thoughts of wanting everything to end, to die. It was hard, dark that I got myself a sleep for another 2 hours before everything went better. It was probably caused by the chain of negative thoughts which occured few days before.

I think I am deciding what my purpose here while I am alive.. In the world where I can be anything, when there's only void of purpose, my purpose is to be somewhere.