Shades of Grey

It’s funny, depression. In the proverbial sense of the word, of course. Why? Well, for one, you never think it might happen to you. It’s that strange, distant thing that everyone has romanticized and few consider serious, and it’s far out of your day to day language unless you’re one of those dramatic beings who misuses the word to express their discomfort by saying they’re “depressed”. And for another, once it happens to you, there is no tipping point. It’s not something you startle over suddenly because you can feel it happening. No. it creeps up on you, slowly, gradually, until you feel like you’re drowning, then come out of it momentarily, often distracted by other things (work, family, studies, what you will) only to be back under. Or perhaps that’s not the best analogy. For me, it is as if you’re slowly submerging in water; therefore, what once was gentle lapping at your ankles, leisurely becomes something you have to wade through because it’s up to your shoulders and ascending, slowing down your movements and making you frustrated. It’s only when it’s past your shoulder and reaches your nose that it becomes something you’re not only aware of, but also desperate to get rid of, and since you can’t do it at once, it frustrates you and makes you irritable on top of everything else. It starts affecting the very things that pulled you out of it, or just the essential aspects of your life: friends, family, relationships, work, studies… life.

Or maybe I have too little introspection, and there are people who realize much sooner, who can feel it happening or detect the red lights earlier. For me, it took years to the point between the water at my ankles to it climbing up my shoulders. And contrary to popular belief, being depressed isn’t just being sad. Yes, there are moments of overwhelming sadness, be it triggered by something, or sometimes even without a tangible explanation. But there are other moments, too. Moments of rage, of profound disappointment, of irascibility, of numbness, of carelessness that borders on recklessness. It isn’t a permanent, linear state of mind. That’s not us, that’s not human beings, even those without this curse. Life isn’t this baseline event that can sometimes have its ups and downs, the way it’s so often believed to be. It’s a fucking mess; of ups and downs, back and forth, progress and involution, mistakes and pain and ecstasy and achievements. Life, in my opinion, is this blend of all of our actions and its consequences, and those around us too, because we can never not be social beings and therefore our lives tangle inevitable with others; some have their shit together, others are even more fucked than you. And you like both those types for it.

They have it wrong, you know? The songs and the movies and the fucking poems. Depression isn’t blue. No. depression is grey. It’s grey for the numbness, the detachment you feel, the disappointment in yourself, the drowning you feel when the water reaches past your nose and up to your eyes. It’s grey for how you feel after you lash out, for the feeling you get when you look around and realize you have been building a wall of self-isolation because sometimes you just can’t handle people, even those who have a positive impact in your life, and those “sometimes” moments tend to happen more often every time. Grey, because the things you used to love and used to give you a thrill don’t even do anything for you anymore, and you seek for another source desperately. Sometimes you find it, but its expiration date is each time closer. Sometimes you don’t, and you spend the rest of whatever time frame you’ve got wondering what the hell is wrong with you.

Some days, or even weeks, or dare I say, months, get better. Those moments, when you feel like you’re gonna get your life together again, that you made a minimum of progress, that the immediate future’s looking up? Those moments are when you’re prone to say: “it does get better”. You just have to wait it out for a little longer, right? But then, then the grey water creeps up on you again, and you don’t even fucking realize it, you can’t see it climbing up your legs because you’re too busy looking at the sun, and it blinds you. and then two things might happen: either something triggers the water to move you enough that you look down and realize how deep you’re into it already, like a shake into reality, or you let it creep up until you can’t breathe and the cycle starts all over again.

Of course, I’m not arrogant enough (or am I) to affirm this applies to everyone, even more mistakenly, everyone with depression. Each of us experiences life in a very different way, and that’s something I enjoy thinking about. We each live in our own reality. My reality as a poor, underpaid worker on a third world country in crisis that has nothing to show for themselves is very different that of a multi-billion dollar teenage heir with neglectful parents, for example. And even without that extreme gap as an example, we can have people very similar to us in many ways with hugely different ways to look at certain aspects of life. we might agree on some subjects, differ in others, or even partially share some views. Life isn’t black and white; even when we agree with something or someone, it might not be completely. That’s what’s fun about life. We have to take into consideration all the shades of grey that make up this mixture, this roller coaster of actions and emotions.

And one of those shades is the very grey that makes up my depression. Justified? Or maybe not? Who knows. Who ever has the power to judge whether something’s deserving of compassion and other should be dismissed as unimportant? I certainly lack the morals and upper hand to be the judge of something so terrible, so momentous. And others might think this is entirely wrong, but I don’t care. I needed somewhere to empty my thoughts. To put feelings into words. This is but an opinion, a point of view. This is the way I experience this complex mesh of emotions. For me, everything is grey.