Keep at it

Isn't it weird that we can feel nostalgia for a period of our lives that was totally miserable? There's something about being in the deepest depths of depression that, while awful at the time, is kind of cosy to look back on.

I suppose it makes sense, since it's hard to remember much of the exact emotional experience of things once those emotions have passed but we're able to remember more concrete things like the lifestyle of staying inside for months on end, not having to speak to anyone, not having to do anything, nobody having any expectations of you, having even fewer expectations of yourself. Perpetually teetering on the edge of that abyss was, ironically, very safe feeling because there was no need to worry about or plan for a future that you didn't intend to experience anyway, and nothing truly bad could happen to you when you didn't really care about anything to begin with. The worst that could happen was really something you'd been hoping for all along.

I didn't really feel much different after all that ECT, but it did set some things in motion. The memory problems it left me with made it impossible to do well in any university exams for the next few years, but I stopped caring about that. Exhausting every treatment option and seeing no improvement let me give up, and giving up let me let go of all the pressure I'd felt to keep things hidden from my family, both for their sake and to protect a final scrap of dignity. Who cares if all the dirty mess comes flowing out over everyone I'd been trying to keep clean? Let it wash over everything. Coat myself in filth. Spread it all over the walls of my therapist's office while I'm at it. Nobody was happy, but I felt a bit better.

So I kept doing it. I guess the ECT helped after all in a roundabout sort of way. I recognised that the sense of self I'd been clinging to was part of what was preventing me from being able to move forward, and my attempts to get "better" by trying to become who I thought everyone else wanted me to be were moving me in the wrong direction. Once I'd figured out what the right direction was and started making actual progress, though, I started to gradually care about things again. I outgrew my protective shell that had been keeping me feeling safe and suddenly shame starting to really sting. The future was back to being something I'd have to actually deal with at some point and that scared the shit out of me.

Actually, everything scared the shit out of me, but now that the risk of "they're all going to find out how disgusting I am unless I do my best to keep it hidden" no longer loomed over me and so failing at things didn't seem quite so intolerable, I went and failed at a bunch of things and embarrassed myself a lot and gradually built up some resistance to it. I took driving lessons, went to my sister's wedding over in America, went to my mother's wedding back home, started forcing myself to speak on voice chat with friends in online games, met up with a few net friends in person. Every single step fucking sucked and the self-conscious, shameful sting of existing left wondering if any of it was worth it each time, but I tried not to think about it.

In 2017 a couple of friends who met each other in the WoW guild we've been in together since 2007 got married over in Russia and invited a group of us from the guild to spend a week over there and attend the ceremony. Again, terrifying, but while over there I realised that all these people I'd been playing with over the years who seemed so happy and outgoing and energetic online were all just shy, quiet nerds who struggled to carry out conversations in real life as well. I was with my people. What the heck,  I figured I'd try and take control of the conversation to see if I could find some easy common topics to get them all involved and chatting freely. It worked! I didn't know I could do that sort of thing. It felt good. At the wedding, I drank a lot of vodka (of course) and I danced. In front of all the people. And for a moment, it stung. But then it didn't.

Once I got back home I started volunteering at a nearby hospital, chatting to the patients who were stuck on the ward and feeling lonely, trying to do for them what one of the mental hospital nurses had done for me back during my first stint inside in 2008. I finally finished my degree, after nearly 8 years of slow progress towards it. I got a job as a waitress in a restaurant to force myself to have to speak to new people constantly. After 2 days I was crying and on the verge of giving up and quitting and realising that I wasn't cut out for this kind of life and going back to being a hermit, but a month or two later that had stopped stinging as well. After 12 long years of reclusion, I rejoined society.

And you know what? I'm still depressed. But that's ok, I probably always will be. Sometimes it gets a bit better, but it inevitably gets worse again. If I let myself get my hopes up each time I think I'm improving I'll just inevitably be disappointed again, so I'm learning to live with it and just accept it as a part of me, the same as how I'll always be an anxious wreck. Instead of trying to hide that, I freely admit it to strangers and they encourage me and tell me I'm doing well, and it becomes ok to be anxious around them after that. I don't have to try and hide anything or put on a show. I still haven't managed to make a single offline friend. That place I got a job at closed down, and I went back to being a NEET for 4 months until I started a new job today. My voice had atrophied back to the point that after an hour or so of talking to people it stopped working, I was awkward and I embarrassed myself and it stung, but this time I know that sooner or later it's going to stop stinging again.

I know that I'm never going to be free of these issues and that as soon as I stop trying to stretch my comfort zone it'll retract again like an elastic band, and that the lure of suicide is always going to be there in the back of my mind, temping me to admit I was silly to ever try, and to let myself fall into that abyss.

But I can live with that.