YDNR: Melancholy

“Inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce and that is who we are.”

Dedicated to my better half

There is a time and place where we forget what it is that defines us.

What makes us humble, what motivates us and what motive drives us to aspire in being better than who we were yesterday.

There is a period in our life, where we forget all reason and ambition and we lose sight of what direction we are meant to go.

Our bodies become fragile, our minds desensitise and we would rather go through the day with our eyes closed and our thoughts silenced.

What matters most, is trying to figure out what got us to where we are.

Emotional heart-ache, degrading comments, physical barriers and mental let downs- we can never pin-point what it is that pushes us into the corner, but once we are there, we struggle to find a way out.

It never helps when people constantly ask you whats wrong, or how are you feeling or question why you aren't who you were two weeks ago. If you have a reason it seems understandable and people can accept that you have a reason to be 'allowed' to feel that way, but what happens when there is no reason?

What happens if we just feel it? Why is it not okay to feel sorry for yourself? Why does there have to be an explanation for the pit that is your stomach and the glaze across your eyes?

If we knew how we felt, we would know how to change it. But the reality...we don't fucking know. We know just about as much as you understand why we are acting the way we are.

Personally, if I feel like life just isn't pleasant or I am stuck in a hateful mind-frame, the last thing I feel like doing is explaining myself.

But, I also cannot assume that people will know how I am feeling and how some people try to force you to talk about your feelings is just their way of 'helping'.

It's a difficult scenario and neither party is going to be happy with the outcome.

Sadness, or sometimes depression is temporary and people can't see that.

Because depression is labelled as an illness, it is something people automatically assume is destructive.

When someone is just going through a tough time and shows signs of what they would clinically diagnose as early stage depression, it becomes something that needs to be 'fixed'.

It doesn't.

It's okay to feel alone. To feel confused and to not know exactly why it is you are unhappy.

That constant loss of appetite and insecurity, the spontaneous outbursts of tears and the temptation of just wanting to fall asleep for a few days- it's all normal.

It's human.

It's moments like these that allow us to ponder who we are, and it also presents a time where we learn crucial elements of ourselves and our tolerance for what we can and cannot take.

We learn to become stronger.

We learn to heal faster and mentally grasp the idea of failing or being let down and teach ourselves tactics on how not to end up where we are for next time.

It's moments of depression that allow us to be just 'us'.

To sit alone in our room crying and fully let go of everything that has been building up for the past year.

To isolate society and nurture what it is that makes us feel unwanted or unloved.

We learn survival.

If we were constantly happy and always satisfied, you wouldn't learn anything about who you are. You would never discover what it is that affects you mentally and physically.

You would never understand your thoughts or mental construction and you would never identify what components of life, make up who you are.

Depression, don't get me wrong, is destructive and yes, it can fatally affect those who don't recover from it. Those who have depression have reached a certain point mentally where they never established an area of mental strength to defeat the things that are bothering them and that is not their fault.

Depression, although destructive, does not necessarily impact everyone the same.

Most people suffer depression throughout their life without realising, but they learn to adapt and modify who they are to become stronger and fight the things that are out to destroy them.

Its part of human nature to admit defeat, but it is also part of who we are on how we rise above it.

Everyone is fighting their own battles, whether they are visible to the eye or not, it isn't our job to try and diagnose others with what we think is wrong with them.