Such a cliché: A depressed Goth

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By Alan D.D.

Misjudged and misunderstood are adjectives I’m very familiar with, since High School, and even for a while when I was in college. People thought they knew it all about me and would define me with the wrong words. I’ve always been loyal to myself, embraced what I stand for and what I believe in. Despite all the good it has done, this also turned me into something controversial: A depressed Goth guy.

A walk in the shadows

Outsiders tend to think that being Goth is what I am, and that commonly accepted idea: someone with depression who uses one or many forms of art to express feelings and thoughts. But there’s more than meets the eye. At least, that’s how it is in my case, no matter how overused the idea can sound for those who read this.

I was bullied verbally and physically when I was in Elementary School, and things grew, up to the unthinkable when I was in my Senior Year. I faced a choice: either keep everything I was living inside, risking myself to end my days at some point, or express it all somehow to keep breathing every single day. We all know which option I took.

This walk in the shadows helped me to save myself, and I learned many valuable things I wouldn’t have ever discovered if I were walking any other path in life. Instead of denying feelings, I embrace them, explore them and then release them in the paper, either by writing or by drawing, which were my most powerful weapons back then.

Walking, Undead and Loving it

Being Goth is accepting that the world is a scary place, as the Lady of the Manners explains, and that’s perfectly fine for me. I know there’s nothing out there waiting to catch me, to kill me, and that I am no immortal to fear the light of day or a myth-hunter person to come in the middle of the night. I’m just a guy who dresses in black to express what he feels.

However, I also face the dilemma of what most Goths try to fight, a stigma that sometimes defines a subculture I belong to. I do not covet the day of death, I don’t want it to come as soon as possible and I do not feel trapped in a nightmare, I’m just walking, undead, and loving it as much as I can while I can.

It can sound strange and unfitting for many, but I strongly believe we all have to search for what helps us, heals us and saves us. Expressing depression helps me, and when I did the same with self-harming it was the same, even when suicidal thoughts came to my mind.