“Being Able to Wake Up is Already Amazing”

I feel like I've been in a state of depression for pretty much as long as I can remember.

I've felt more unhappy than happy since I was probably four years old. When I was five or six years old, I started hearing strange noises, like an alarm clock going off, but I couldn't find the alarm clock. At that time I began to wonder if I was in a dream and the alarm clock was telling me to wake up so I could go back to the age of three. I clearly remember that when I was three years old, everyone in the world looked at me with smiles on their faces and thought I was cute and loved. But that feeling disappeared when I was four, and since then I've fallen more and more into depression.

I think there are many causes of depression, not just a lack of love. There are physiological and genetic causes of depression, as well as psychological trauma. If you think that psychological trauma is the same as lack of love, I think it is because the person who experiences love is not so easily traumatized by the outside world; there is someone there to catch him when he is hurt. But understood that way, the nature of depression would be closer to a lack of love than a lack of someone to be there when they experience trauma.

Some of you may think that since the essence of depression is the absence of companionship, it is enough to go out and find people. This is why many people think that socialization is suggested for depression. But my personal experience is that if the person knows that I am depressed, they rarely suggest that I socialize. Socializing is energy-draining for depressed people. Socializing may not be a solution for depressed people, it's just a necessity to keep us socialized. Depressed people can socialize, we can suspend our depressed state and push a button to socialize and mimic living like a normal person. For example, we go to school and work every day. Socializing or not socializing is no different because we are constantly in a state of suppressed inner pain. The hardest thing to understand about depression is how unmotivated one can be when accomplishing things in their daily life. Depression is not the opposite form of happiness or sadness, but more of a state of lack of motivation.

This state is like an emotional cold, you wouldn't ask someone with a cold, "How would you feel if you were the only person around you with a cold?” I think a lot of people go through this emotional cold. The only real difference between a depressed community and an undepressed community is that even when nothing is happening, we're still in a cold state, more like the low-resistance group, I guess. That's all. I don't feel that I'm different from other people, and I don't feel that I'm a person who's far from the coherence of the world.

In Hong Kong, there is a term called "white card", which means that people with mental illness can apply for a white card in Hong Kong to enjoy some social benefits. However, some people may stigmatize it and use it to insult people in their daily lives, such as "white card boy". Some depressed and anxious people may actually feel offended after hearing such jokes.

In terms of misconceptions, parents may sometimes feel that people with depression and anxiety just think too much and that a solution is to stop overthinking. There are also some labels for people with depression and anxiety as "melodramatic, sick, and sentimental," but I think these misconceptions and stereotypes stem from the previous generation. I would think that many people in the world understand me, but instead the "lack of understanding" occurs more often among people who are very close to me. Sometimes they still ask me to do things that normal people would do, but they don't really see me as a patient. They usually don't understand why when I get home, I suddenly act like I've lost my strength, and I'm paralyzed in bed all night, unable to do even the simplest things, and even putting off some of the most important things. Some people would think that I think these things are not important, but in fact I have been fighting with myself, the more I know that the more important this thing is, the more difficult it is to do, and other people will have a hard time understanding this state of affairs, right?

In fact, I have never wanted other people to understand me, because I think that their lack of understanding is a positive thing: if they can understand me, it proves that they have experienced this darkness as well. I've also met people who say, "Can I help you?" but I think it's so strange that it's not a question of whether they can help me or not. I don't think anyone has to help me, and no one can do anything for me. The only thing they can do for me is to understand that I'm a person who can suddenly lose motivation, that I think this is really important but I just don't have the motivation to do it, and that I'll get out of my depression one day. That's the biggest thing that will allow others to understand and help me.

One of the phrases that stuck with me was "You're awesome for waking up today" and "You're awesome for waking up and coming to school and work today. Because that's the kind of thing that's really easy for other people, but it's hard for me. If someone understands that it's really hard, then they're someone who understands and trusts that I'm not motivated rather than lazy. I think it's important to have that trust, and that's why I would tell anybody who's depressed, "Being able to wake up today makes you awesome.”

- Anonymous

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Simona｜Editor

孙逸铭｜Translator