Hope

A strong, thick fog clouds your mind as you lie in bed, wondering to yourself; “Will things ever get better?”. It’s not quite sadness that you feel, but it’s the closest emotion you can put to what plagues you, even during your happiest moments. When you look into the past you only see your mistakes, replaying events over and over, thinking if there was anything you could have done differently to change the outcome. You don’t dare try to envision the future, as your mind spirals into the darkest depths.

These are all things I’ve felt before, and continue to feel from time to time. I’ve asked myself: “What’s the point of going on if nothing will ever change?”. I’ve had to challenge myself to stop thinking this way, before doing something irreversible, and I know many of you have as well.

I’ve felt the unrelenting grip of depression as it chokes any sense of hope out of you. It creeps up and lays in your mind until it finds a moment of vulnerability and then strikes swiftly, but lingering far longer than it has any right to. In time your defense weakens and you succumb to the voices.

But no more. No longer am I allowing my self doubts and self pity to dictate my life, and neither should you.

The pain and hurt inside you are all too real, trust me, I know. But with that darkness inside, there is also a light. A weak fire waiting to be ignited and slowly grow until it becomes a blazing inferno of love, passion and hope.

Far too late in life did I realize that all of this self pity, self hatred, dwelling on the past, all stemmed from a love of others. Not a healthy kind of love, but a love where I thought everyone around, deserves better than what they had, better than me.

But they didn’t.

I am who I am and everyone around me loves me for it. For all the voices in my head, bringing me down, there were multiple external voices, of those things who I loved telling me that I was more than enough, I had just drowned them out.

The people who I cared for, cared about me, I just couldn’t see it. In my mind I was a fuck up, a loser, a geek with no redeeming qualities, but in their minds I was a kind, soft, humble and incredibly talented soul.

But am I? How could others think of me this way if I couldn’t?

It was because I couldn’t feel this way about myself that others could see these things in me. Because of my self hatred I tried to make sure everyone around me was happy, make sure that everyone around me felt loved and cherished so that they wouldn’t feel the same way I did. That was what drove me, that’s what kept me going on in my darkest times.

Depression is absolutely a curse, but it was also my greatest blessing. It made me think of others first, prioritizing everyone else’s wants over my own and because of that I met so many amazing people, made so many connections that I wouldn’t have if I didn’t care so much about others.

My greatest flaw had suddenly become a shining ray of hope. I started trying to look at myself through other peoples perspectives instead of my own, and suddenly I started feeling like everything I ever thought I wasn’t. I wasn’t selfish, I was caring. I wasn’t a bother, I was someone who I would love having by my side. I wasn’t worthless, I was worth just as much as everyone around me who I had valued so much more than myself.

This switch in mentality didn’t change who I was as a person either. I still wanted to make sure that everyone around me was loved, because the scars of self hatred still ran deep, they still were fresh in my mind, but instead of wanting everyone to feel a lack of self hatred, I wanted everyone to feel love for themselves, just how I do now. And that made all the difference.

Depression still has a hold of me, but my mentality has become a lot better. I wrote this because if even one other person can resonate with this, then I’ve succeeded. My love for others is what led me to write this, and because I did, my love for myself has grown with it.