The thing about
being depressed is that you essentially don't need anyone to criticize your
work or give you feedback on anything you do because you won't listen to them anyway. To put it simply, a severely depressed person
focuses all of their attention on themselves and no matter what they do, in
their own eyes it will never be good enough. You are always too fat or too
skinny, to pale or too dark, your hair is never quite right and even if you
were awarded an Olympic gold medal, a Nobel Prize and an honorary title of
"president of space" you would still feel like you are worth jack shit.
In essence, a
depressed individual is the exact opposite of a narcissist. The only thing the two have in common is not being based on reality. A self-absorbed
narcissist will focus most of their attention on other individuals in order to
show them just how much better he or she is and how worthless they are in his
or her magnificent presence (especially if they are not). A depressed individual will notice no one but
themselves, focusing all of their attention on either trying to prove to
themselves they are not as worthless as they appear or, in more severe cases,
reaffirming the fact that, no matter what the world around them says or does,
they are in fact useless collections of atoms that would serve their greatest
purpose in life by pushing daisies. My place in this whole conundrum is hopping
somewhere between the proving to myself and the world that I matter on the one
side, and becoming fertilizer on the other. Depending on the day, I might be
anywhere on that spectrum with the occasional outburst of
i-am-actually-normal-and-the-world-is-good mood. On the particular day I wrote the following paragraphs my brain was rooting for
the daisies.
I could feel a
panic-attack coming. It wasn't the first and it sure as hell wouldn't be the
last, but it was bad. I have to remind myself to breathe (in through the nose,
out through the mouth) and I'm shaky. Not the kind of shaky you get when you
forget to eat, more like a fight-or-flight instinct that can't make up its
mind; to tackle the invisible enemy with a blunt ax or run like hell down a
dead-end street? Tough decisions. I feel and over-think each of my breaths. I feel the adrenalin rushing and I can't help but give in to it. It is a pointless
waste of time and energy, a panic-attack, and I am still giving in to it. To
hell with all of it, all the soothing, calming picture-your-happy-place
bullshit. I'm gonna panic now, calm myself down later, when my brain decides it
is time and when I get some natural and slightly less natural chemical help
with the calming. Breathe, damn it! My heart is racing. You'll give yourself a heart-attack. Dad was at the doctors today, the doctor doesn't like the look of his
arteries. Fuck, not that again. Dad wont die! But Anna's dad had a heart attack and he was in better shape than your
dad AND younger too. Shut up! What
would happen if mom got sick, like stay in the hospital sick and dad panicked
like you are panicking now? AAAARGH!!!! Stop it!!! What of you and the brat? And you are supposed to take care of your
boyfriend now, since he's unemployed. Stop it, stop it, stopit stopit
stopitstopitstopitstopit!!!! Fine, I'll
shut up now. I'm sure you've got other things to do, like school stuff, right? Oh,
God!!! I need a cigarette! And a drink! AND I DON'T CARE IF THAT MAKES ME AN
ALCOHOLIC!!!
This whole
conversation is, naturally, all in my head. I am sitting alone at the kitchen
table, my brother in his room playing video-games, my parents watching TV in
the living room, all of them completely oblivious to the fact that I am
silently falling apart over a cup of coffee. And now you know why my brain
sometimes comes to the conclusion that I am just not worth the trouble I cause.
I don't , in general, bother other people with my deficiencies, but I give
myself a helluva mental workout.
No comments:
Post a Comment