A Heavily Altered Compilation of Three Posts I Made About Depression on Tumblr

"So here’s what’s up, Babe.

You’re dry land, depression is the ocean, writing is a flotation device and I’m a bad swimmer. Get it?

And some days, the good days, I’m Not such a bad swimmer. I feel good and I feel strong and I enjoy the wind and the water and the sun, but other days?

Other days, I get tossed around in the waves and I’m clutching on to my flotation device and desperately trying to keep you in view, but I can’t.

Those are bad days. Those are the days that I can’t break the surface no matter how hard I try and sometimes,

Those are the days that I stop trying.

I think of you

And I clutch at my flotation device

And I kick and flail to get back to the surface

But it’s no use.

I’m exhausted.

I’m really not a very good swimmer and my flotation device sinks with me and you’re too far away to help.

But that doesn’t mean you’re not doing enough and it doesn’t mean that I don’t love you.

I love you.

But you’re an island

And I need to learn to swim..."

"...let me break it down for you, in as raw and real a way as I know how (although, I’m a poet by nature so, I’ll never truly be able to escape the metaphors.)

The bottom line, is that death is easy and life is hard.

It’s kind of just that simple...

...I’m nineteen. The average natural lifespan for a healthy human being is about eighty to ninety years.

That means that, as exhausted as I am now, I potentially still have about sixty years left to go.

Three more lifetimes worth of memories and struggle, etcetera, etcetera. Also, my first memory wasn’t made until my fourth year of living  which means that, actually, I’m only holding fifteen years worth of memories right now.

Only fifteen years worth with another sixty to go and I am already so exhausted. I am exhausted.

Also, on a scale of one to ten (one being easy as a breeze and ten being Holocaust levels of fucked up), I would say that my life has been about a five. Maybe a six.

That means that, as much as I have struggled, it could have been so much worse. It could still get worse.

Life sucks and oblivion is a familiar and comforting embrace.

I know oblivion. I know the empty satisfaction of a dreamless sleep. I know.

And death is just oblivion times infinity.

As much as I love the people and things I love and as many reasons as I have for why I have to live, as many things as I have to do and as much as I think life and the universe are beautiful and full of wonder…

...Still, oblivion would just be so much easier. Death would be so much easier. And in death, I would feel no guilt or regret for the things I didn’t accomplish or for the people that I failed.

I would feel nothing.

I would be nothing.

And life never gets any lighter either. I’ll never have less memories, less experience or less life lived tomorrow than I did today. It doesn’t decrease, it only increases.

Good memories or bad memories, it still adds up. I still feel the weight and there will always be more to carry tomorrow than there was today.

It’s heavy. It gets heavier for every second that I spend awake.

I’m exhausted and there is no cure for this.

I only have three options:

One: die.

Two: sleep/find some way to get amnesia or Alzheimer’s.

Three: live.

I am trying to live.

I am forcing myself out of bed every morning and finding reasons to keep going...

...I love you.

I want to live.

I’ll keep trying for as long as I am able.

If I give up, if I collapse halfway through and I leave you behind, I am sorry...

...I wish I could somehow make it easier for both of us, but I haven’t found the way yet. I may never figure it out...

...You’re one of the only things that truly makes me feel that living is worth all the struggle. That I’m actually grateful for all of it, if only to have you.

Don’t feel guilty or think that there is anything more that you could be doing to help..."

"It’s weird that I’ve had depression since I was like ten, but even now that I’m almost twenty, I’m still learning how to navigate it.

Like, I’ve gotten a pretty good grip of it, but I still have moments where I slip up and don’t realize it until days later?

Not to the point where I’m drowning in it, but just to the point where my head goes under for a second and I have to splutter and flail my way back to the surface.

I sometimes forget that it’s a life sentence for me and I’ll never be able to completely escape it.

But, I have gotten and continue to get pretty good at coping, so I’ll probably be okay."