1806: Resolute

My friend Dan (aka “utterbiblio”) wrote a heartfelt and eye-opening post earlier. And I related to it one hell of a lot.

Dan has been through a lot over the last few years, most notably a horrendous family tragedy that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. This, thankfully, isn’t something I can directly relate to — though I can at least empathise and sympathise with him — but the other things he talks about in that post, some of which stem directly from that awful happening and others of which have always been present in his life, are the parts where I felt like I could have written that very post.

Depression is, as I’ve commented on here on numerous occasions, a terrible thing. It destroys lives — quite literally, in all too many cases. And for those who hang on in there trying to survive day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, little by little, it can feel like a pointless journey with no end in sight. Or, perhaps more accurately, it can feel like a journey with two possible destinations: the one that’s worth getting to, the one that’s hard work and far away, feels like it’s way beyond the horizon and perpetually moving away from your current position, while the other destination is just a short hop off the cliff that is forever to one side of you. Just jump, and you’re there; the end, that’s it, nothing more to worry about.

Dan describes in his post how he has contemplated taking his own life. On a number of occasions throughout my time on this earth, similar thoughts have entered my mind. They’ve never stuck around long enough for me to seriously feel like I’d ever act on them, but they’ve been there nonetheless, offering me that easy-to-get-to destination during the darkest periods of my journey. I’ve wondered what it might be like; I’ve even written a private piece of creative writing contemplating what it might be like to go through with ending one’s own life, but even then my own mind stopped me from truly going through with it: the character in the short tale (who might as well have been me) was saved at the last second by a fictional character of my own creation who has always brought me great comfort ever since I first dreamed her up back in high school. Even in fiction, it was clear I didn’t want to go through with it.

My life’s not in a terrible place. I can’t complain too much. But still the darkness comes from time to time; feelings of bleakness and hopelessness — and no-one around to go and hunt Odin with (there’s a reference only FFXIV players will get) — that eventually dissipate into the wind, but which occasionally, from time to time, drift back, sometimes as the result of a careless word, sometimes due to something silly happening, sometimes just… because.

It’s an unfortunate reality of life. And it’s one that, over the years, I’ve come to know a significant proportion of people carry the burden of — even those who may seem bright, chipper and upbeat when you see them face-to-face. That public face isn’t always the true face; inside, there might be unrest, pain, suffering, even the desire to end it all. You can never really know what someone is feeling unless they’re feeling strong and safe enough to spell it out for you, like Dan did with the post I linked to above, and like I’ve done a few times here on this blog.

2014 has been a year of ups and downs for many of us. Here’s hoping that 2015, which is just around the corner, errs on the side of “up” rather than “down”.