“The hardest thing about depression is that it is addictive.  It begins to feel uncomfortable not to be depressed. You feel guilty for feeling happy.” – Pete Wentz

Life has been one big roller coaster ride.  From graduation day to the birth of my babies, every moment has been up and down. I have a great job, I have a wonderful supporting wife, I have a great family, I have nothing going on in my life that no one else does, and for that very reason… there should be nothing that is keeping me from being happy with everything.  Well, you would think that I have nothing to really complain about, and there is nothing that should keep me from just living in the moment… enter the depression….

It is one of the hardest things to explain. My mind gets into a space where the self loathing is almost unbearable. I can be riding the best moments in life, and then out of nowhere, I get hit with this self-deprecating feeling.  It is as if someone takes an ice cube and just numbs my brain.  It hurts, it makes me not want to move, and then it just remains there.  The smallest random memory can trigger this emotional plight. It is more annoying than anything else, because there is nothing in the world that can stop it.  There is no one that causes it, it is just me. My mind beats up me, and honestly, it sucks more than anyone will ever know.

I know that depression in itself is the work of nothing more than pure evil. There is nothing that is associated with it that is beneficial to anything in life. To be locked inside your thoughts, with a giant battle raging about yourself ensues, is nothing short of pure torture.  It is not something that anyone should ever have to go through. It is something that happens to me on a consistent basis.  There is medication out there, for sure, but that just seems to mask over the underlying problems going on. There is therapy, and that can help to a point, but it never really takes away what is going on in your mind. Just like the quote, sometimes I feel guilty for feeling happy, almost as much as I feel guilty for feeling bad.  It really is a horribly terrifying thing to know that your mind can lock you down to the point where you don’t want to move forward.

Talking about things helps. Always having someone to talk to is important to keeping the depression from winning. I am super lucky that I have people willing to listen to the same things over and over from me. I recommend finding someone, because this is not something that can be fought alone.