High Functioning Depressant
My depression does not always look like sadness. Most days it looks like survival. It looks like exhaustion while still trying to function. It looks like carrying years of pain while pretending I am okay because I had no other choice.
When depression looks like survival
I learned very young how to survive emotionally without feeling safe and had no one to turn to. Over time, my depression became loud and out of control. I did everything to quiet it down from drinking, smoking, drugs, and even promiscuity. It took me a long time to realize I was only hurting not self not others.
In time I got help through therapy and seeing a psychiatrist but I had a long way to go but I still, worked and I still cleaned, cared for others, paid bills and tried to keep going, but inside I often felt emotionally drained and alone sometimes the darkness of depression would set in and all I wanted was to see the light, but when depression hits you hard it can truly be very debilitating like never getting out of bed or showering living in the dark not wanting to socialize or even care for your kids but my story goes way deeper and it has a lot of traumas that I survived.
Finding comfort and purpose in a rescue dog
The one thing that has kept me grounded is my ability to still care the fact that I care deeply about animals, about suffering, about people feeling, unseen because I know what that feels like myself.
When I got my dog, Nike, he became more than a pet to me. He became comfort, routine, loyalty, and unconditional love during some of the darkest periods of my life when I got him he was only 5 weeks old he, was rejected, alone, hungry dirty and needed love just like me he became my life a living creature so tiny that needed care love and a safe, loving forever home and he has that with me we were meant to be a family .
Understanding the true face of survival fatigue
Depression for me is not only sadness. It is grief, survival fatigue, disappointment, loneliness, and years of emotional pain that were never fully healed.
But despite everything, I still have hope. I still dream about peace, nature, stability, and happiness. I still believe my life can become something softer and calmer than the life I survived through. And maybe that hope is the part of me depression never fully destroyed.” I will keep healing because I never give up if I survived death and DV. I can survive having depression one step at a time.
