Sitting in a dark room counting the tiles on the ceiling just to distract myself from the dangerous paths my mind could take is not the healthiest pastime, but it is one I find myself doing more often than I’d like to admit.
Unfortunately, it was not the first coping method I decided to use, either. When the seemingly endless pit of nothing swallowed me whole in my sophomore years of high school and college, my dark room was the back of my mind, and the ceiling tiles were rough lines on the sides of my thighs. Daunting thoughts of “what if I left?” and “why am I here?” plagued my brain from a very early age, forcing my subconscious to hold onto dark images of a fading, helpless girl needing an escape from life.
Dramatic, right?
Actually, no. I am not being dramatic, I am being honest. Thoughts of self-harm and suicide are no joke, no dramatization of the mind. They are very much present in contemporary society, and alarmingly so. In fact, according the to American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 44,965 people commit suicide every year in the United States. That is almost 45,000 people who feel like they have nowhere to go. Families are torn apart, parents mourn their child, siblings miss their brothers and sisters, friends never get to visit again. It’s devastating.
Unfortunately, even though suicide and self harm are very prominent in the news, rates have not gone down. Various efforts are being made by many to calm this swell of self-harm. Organizations and movements such as The Trevor Project, To Write Love On Her Arms, and the crisis hotline all support depressed, mentally ill individuals with harmful thoughts, so why are these rates skyrocketing?
From first-hand experience, I know how hard it is to even reach out for help during times of such struggle. My brain shuts down and my thoughts go numb, so I step away from the hand reaching out for me. I reject seeking comfort because of the thoughts that put me there in the first place, and it’s no easy habit to break. But I know I’m not alone in this, which gives me comfort in some sort of tragic way. I know I’m not crazy because I can see the grip of depression drag people down. I see how it plagues minds and hollows bodies. It leaves a trail of nostalgic happiness in its wake, something we feel we cannot quite attain again.
Haunting Thoughts hide deep in the crevices of our brains and wait for the perfect time to take hold: when we’re vulnerable. And so we never allow ourselves to let in emotion. We sit back and watch life unravel before our eyes without ever getting too attached, afraid of vulnerability. We smile at the right times, nod our heads in agreement, but we never live.
It’s infuriating once you begin to realize what’s happening. How can the human mind sabotage joy and tranquility so easily?
It’s even more infuriating when you don’t know what to do about it. How can I get rid of these thoughts? How can I be normal again?
The truth is, depression doesn’t just go away. You cannot just make it disappear. It takes work, effort, persistence to even manage it. Those thoughts and urges to self-harm do not evaporate, but with practice and patience, it gets easier to stifle them. It gets easier to silence them, at least for awhile.
But how?
My simple answer is this: bury them. Not in the depths of your head, or even worse, in your heart. Do not let them make their way back there. No, you have to bury them in happiness.
Contradictory, right?
In a way, yes.
“How do you help depression?”
“…happiness.”
It seems like bullshit, frankly, I’m not denying that. However, if you really focus on taking care of those thoughts, you might start to see something change.
Now, obviously, not everyone has the same coping mechanisms, so not everything I mention here will work, but the first step is to be vulnerable.
Terrifying, I know. Trust me.
To let happiness in, to let any strong emotion in, vulnerability is necessary. It allows you to release the shitty, terrorizing thoughts that have begun to dictate your life. And while figuring out why you’re sad is usually easier said than done, you have to dig down. Scream at the top of your lungs, write down your terrible thoughts until your wrist hurts, drive until you get lost. Do anything you can to reach that sadness that has taken over.
Then channel it. Keep it in your grip, open yourself up to heartbreak, to loss. Get help. Reach out to your family, friends, professional help, and whoever can help you sort through those feelings. Take each day as an opportunity to get more in tune with your emotions, an opportunity to control them. And when it becomes possible, (you’ll know when it does), you must override those bad thoughts. Replace them with newer, pleasant ones. Bury them under the wave of joy that you get when you realize you go a whole day without a breakdown. Bury them under the relaxation of a hot bath and your favorite song. Hide them from your brain because they’ve been felt, dealt with. They no longer have the power to control you. You are free, for now. And when they do decide to come back, let them. Open up. Feel vulnerable because you have been through this before. You’ve conquered them.
This is your life, depression or not. You and I, we have the power to live the way we want to. We can do whatever we want with our minds, just remember– Haunting Thoughts can only get us if we never learn to hide them.
