When I am Depressed

Everyday is a battle for my life. Everyday I wake up and I begin fighting. Imagine this.... waking up every morning and having to jump into the ocean and swim. You cannot stop, it is freezing cold, but you must keep swimming or you will die. That is what depression is for me. It controls every single aspect of my life....

When I am depressed all I want to do is sleep.
When I am depressed I cannot sleep. 
When I am depressed I do not eat. 
When I am depressed all my other emotions are turned off, sometimes I feel absolutely nothing. 
When I am depressed I isolate myself from society because in my mind I am not good enough. 
When I am depressed I remember every horrible thing I have ever done in my life. 
When I am depressed I am a failure. 
When I am depressed I am the worst person in the world because I am considered/feel "selfish". When I am depressed I don't believe all the kind words people say to me. 
When I am depressed I cannot look at my own reflection because I am ugly. 
When I am depressed I feel invisible. 
When I am depressed my smile is fake. 
When I am depressed I feel as if I am drowning, like I am sinking in the middle of the ocean after swimming for 12 hours. 
When I am depressed I have no hope. 
When I am depressed I don't want to live. 
When I am depressed the thought of death brings me relief.

I want to stop and just rest but I can't. Nobody can take my place and fight this for me. All they can do is cheer from the sidelines and tell me that I can do it. It is easier to keep fighting if I have someone cheering me on. My depression is trying to kill me. I can't let it do that, as much as I would like to give up some days. I have a family to think about, so I keep fighting. But somedays I don't want to fight because I am tired. But I fight because if I don't I will no longer be me....

The Monster Within Me

So this last weekend my sister and her husband came down to spend some time with us. On Friday we went bowling. It started out being a lot of fun. Then I started to suck about the second game and I let it get to me. I began to feel depressed and eventually just stopped caring about the game. I eventually tried imagining the pins as my depression.... I then got a split. I got really frustrated after that. I just kept getting progressively worse and worse throwing the ball into the gutter. We ended the second game and I was not looking forward to another one. My first turn I threw the ball and fell down but got a strike. Nate then came to help me up. 

Depression is this monster that once it has a hold of you it refuses to let go. When I first started to suck while bowling it had just started grabbing me. Then as soon as I got that split it was then able to wrap all its tentacles around my entire body then it continued to repeatedly throw me into the gutter. I feel like a lot of the time when I try to fight off my depression it lets me do some damage but then throws me a "split" and laughs at me cause it knows I can never truly win when it does that. By the end of the second game I had some pretty bad emotional bruises from this monster. After I got that first strike I felt like the "monster" had let go almost completely. It wasn't until Nate came to help me up that I felt perfectly normal. It got me thinking how most days when I get depressed even if I am able to fight it off I still need Nate and my Heavenly Father to help me up. 

Depression is not something I can fight on my own. I am slowly starting to realize that. I grew up with a family where even us girls were expected to be tough and that was great. I learned how to handle doing things on my own and it eventually became a habit. But I can't do that with depression. I cannot fight this war alone. Nobody can.