Saturday 22nd April: 9:46pm.
I like songs that have the most gut-wrenching lyrics accompanied by an upbeat melody. That is probably why I grew up loving The Smiths and listening to Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now on repeat before school started. And it’s definitely the reason why I’m currently sat in bed at 9pm listening to Give Yourself a Try by The 1975 on repeat and bopping my head along which in turn is shaking away my tears. It feels like the most accurate representation of my existence - to feel so deeply but skip along to the melody nonetheless.
It does get better. Sometimes. However, in those times where it isn’t better, it feels like drowning in a sea of fake smiles that could bite at any second. Those fake smiles being mine and the biting being the unprovoked anger I feel when my emotions feel so far yet so excruciatingly close at the same time. Has anyone ever called depression a paradox? I surely can’t be the first but nonetheless, everything I will ever say about my experience with depression will contradict itself because there is no one way it feels and yet it is still so consuming. It is an ongoing cycle of hope and desperation and never knowing which one you’ll feel when you wake up in the morning. It wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, it was just desperation. Desperation to not exist or desperation to be “fixed”, but never hope. The hope only appeared once I started antidepressants and realised that muting a bit of the pain allowed me to see the bigger picture, even though I haven’t fully understood what the bigger picture is, it feels like I can see these glimmers of it.
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