By JE
Depression, to me, is similar to being stuck in quicksand. Imagine the quicksand as all your negative thoughts, sadness, and anxiety. You’re in the quicksand, and at times you can pull yourself out just enough to get through the day, or maybe a week, but inevitably it sucks you back in – sometimes deeper than before. Sometimes you let it drag you down and other times you fight it, but it’s always pulling at you.
A bottomless pit
You obviously know you’re in the quicksand, but you wonder how you got so stuck in there. Maybe the quicksand is only a foot deep, but it still feels like a bottomless pit. You know you want to get out, but how? Can you pull yourself out? Maybe you could slowly and gradually hoist yourself out of the pit and look around at everyone else and go, “Oh! So THIS is what it’s like…”
Or maybe you need a hand, but just when someone reaches out to help, you retract your hand – for fear of the unknown, or maybe it’s stubbornness, or maybe you’ve become content in your misery pit and don’t want to leave.
Ashamed of my misery
My depression is more similar to the latter of what I just described. Feeling unworthy of happiness, I stay stuck in the pit of my own accord. I desperately want help but feel as though I should be able to overcome this myself. Often times I even feel ashamed of my misery, which just makes it worse.
My life isn’t SO bad – what do I have to be sad about? I have a decent job, though not my ideal career. I have a supportive partner who cares for me, but sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in THEIR pit. Overall, things aren’t all that bad. And that’s the problem – lack of struggle. I never really had to overcome any adversities. I wasn’t just GIVEN handouts, but didn’t have to fight to get what I wanted.
How can we escape?
My life has been so mediocre, and it’s driving me insane. My life lacks meaning, and this lays the foundation for depressive thoughts to consume me. I have every opportunity to be happy, yet I remain in the quicksand. How do I, or we, escape it fully?
I think we should just think of the quicksand as water and learn to swim.
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