An old journal entry on depression, loneliness, and what it means to keep making it through the day.
From the Attic
An undated journal entry from an earlier season of my life. This piece reflects what I was feeling at a particular moment in time. I have left its fragments and repetitions largely as they were, because that is how the thoughts came to me then.
Content note: This entry contains references to depression, suicidal thoughts, loneliness, self-loathing, and death.
People do not know what it means for me simply to make it through one day.
They do not know what an enormous thing that can be.
And so no one knows how proud I am of myself for still being here,
still getting through another day.
Sometimes, when I tell myself,
You made it through today too.
my throat tightens and I feel like crying.
I want to become someone for whom living through a day is no big deal.
I want, just once before I die, to live a day filled only with the joy of being alive.
I wonder what it feels like to live a day without wanting to die.
I hate that I remain the same through every season.
_
The pain I carry is pain I have to carry alone.
I gave up a long time ago on wanting to be understood.
But whenever I realize that the pain has not become any lighter—that instead it seems to be growing heavier—I begin to wonder whether I will ever get better.
Whether I will ever really be okay.
Tonight, that fear weighs heavily on me.
_
To look at such a beautiful view and think nothing more than,
I want to die.
How damaged does a person’s heart have to become to have a thought like that?
I am always startled by how broken I seem to be.
The person who hurts me most is me.
But I still cannot see an exit that would let me escape from myself.
_
One thing depression has taught me is that a person can be sad without a reason.
Perhaps saying there is absolutely no reason would invite argument.
So if I had to find one, I would say that sometimes existing itself feels sad.
Maybe human beings are simply made with the capacity to hurt like this.
And after learning what it is like to hurt without a clear reason, I learned something else:
not to decide for someone else whether their pain is justified.
When someone tells us they are hurting, we often listen and then quietly pass judgment.
Do they really have enough reason to feel this way?
Is this pain legitimate?
Or are they exaggerating?
But once you understand that a person can hurt without being able to explain why,
you stop weighing someone else’s sadness so carelessly.
You simply accept that their pain is as heavy as it feels to them.
Not because I have become especially generous or compassionate.
But because I wanted the same thing.
I wanted someone to accept my pain—this sadness with no clear beginning—without asking me to prove that I had earned the right to feel it.
_
What is a family supposed to be?
Like a fool, I keep hoping.
Again and again.
Even though I know I will be disappointed again.
Even though I know I will be hurt again.
Why do I keep hoping for those warm words,
for things that seem to exist only in my imagination?
Is it because I am lonely?
I do not know.
I am just so sad.
It is Sunday,
and once again my heart has fallen apart like this.
Still, on the way home,
and again once I get there,
I will pray.
I will lay this hurt before God
and ask Him to give me a heart that can forgive,
and a heart that can still be grateful.
Because that is the only way I know how to keep living.
There are many things more frightening than death.
I have spent so much of my life killing parts of myself,
again and again.
Even if we do not die from COVID, we all die eventually.
From illness.
From old age.
From accidents.
From hunger.
But there is something more frightening than dying.
It is having to keep living
with a heart that is already dead.
I lived that way for quite a long time.
I thought perhaps I was finally beginning to leave that life behind.
And then one small sentence—something that should have meant almost nothing—
killed my heart again.
I will stop here.
I need to go home now.
To comfort this deadened heart.
That is all for today.
Why I’m sharing this
When I was going through this period, one of the few things that made me feel less alone was discovering that someone else had once felt something similar. I’m sharing this old entry for the same reason. Not because pain should be romanticized or explained away, but because sometimes simply being recognized can be a kind of comfort. If you found this because you are in a similar place, I hope these words make you feel a little less alone tonight.
