— What's wrong with you?
— I'm miserable.
— You should go get something to eat.
We have no great war. No great depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives.
When someone asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt... all he can say is, "Gradually, then suddenly." That' how depression hits. You wake up one morning afraid that you're going to live.
Does it depress you, commissioner... to know just how alone you really are?
Here's what I do when I'm feeling down. I get very quiet and very still. And I say to myself... Everyone in the world is as miserable and empty as I am. There's just better pretending.
The other thing about depression is it kind of collapses time. Suddenly, you find your whole days blending together to create one endless and suffocating loop. So you find yourself trying to remember the things that made you happy. But slowly, your brain begins to erase every memory that ever brought you joy. And eventually, all you can think about is how life has always been this way.
And will only continue to be this way.
If only my life could be more like the movies. I want an angel to swoop down like he does to Jimmy Stewart... in It's a Wonderful Life and talk me out of suicide. I've always waited for that one moment of truth to set me free... and change my life forever. But he won't come. It doesn't happen that way. All the drugs, all the therapy... the fights, anger, guilt, Rafe, suicidal thoughts. All of that was part of some slow recovery process. The same way I went down, I came back up... gradually, and then suddenly.
I cannot hide how low I feel.
The thought of having to stand up, exert 172 muscles each step for 35 feet, just so I can sit on cold porcelain and piss out toxins over and over again for the rest of my life makes the whole concept of living feel like one long, sadistic joke.
But the absolute worst part of depression is that even though you know you're depressed, you're unable to stop yourself from getting worse.
Well, some days, something inside just doesn't wanna get up. Ever feel like that?
- 1
- 2