Bashing The Cliché *What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger* And Thoughts On Depressions

Whoever says this sentence has no idea how it feels to constantly have depressions.

One of the most ignored mental problems is depression, and it, however, sometimes is assumed only when one gets bored. Even though I am no expert, there's a noticeable difference: boredom goes away, depression does not. Having myself Borderline Disorder (which can be interpreted as suffering from constant emotional chaos and overreacting to everything to keep it simple), I go through the aforementioned phases on a daily basis: boredom is when something is no longer interesting, or you temporarily cannot quite catch what's the meaning of life (for example when you've just finished a series that you were so much into it and seemingly lost track of reality), but if you get something exciting enough to amuse with, all sorted. On the other hand, depression is when one does not know what to do, even what to feel, everything is meaningless and hurtful to them. They don't always appear to be sad, or distant, they even "are" cheerful and full of energy when put into society, but even when being surrounded by such crowd, or as soon as being alone, they silently draw back to their own solitude and emptiness. Such depression not only affects one's mental health, it also affects bodily healthiness due to constant lack is sleep and peace of mind. Bodily pains can be cured, mentally: not so easy.

I cannot emphasise enough the fact that you cannot ask someone who is depressed to stop being depressed, it is not that simple. It is a state of mental being that requires unaccountable amount of will and effort to live with, let alone get pass it. However, there's an undeniable fact (at least to me) that we (the depressed entity) want to be understood and sympathised, but we don't want to confess such craving, and we by no mean want to be taken pity on, or treated differently as if being sick or having "mental illness".

This gets us to the point of the same old cliché: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger (by the by, sorry Kelly Clarkson, I hate this particular song of yours). Yes, it might be correct to a fair number of people who are classified as being normal, the ones who are perfectly healthy both physically and mentally, who can control their feelings and go by reasons, though sometimes can be affected by temporary mental/emotional instability. A different fair amount of people find it hard to cope up with life's situations and changes, with all of its ups-and-downs. What kills them really kills them: it makes them doubtful of what's worth living for, say, a person who suddenly loses everything most if the time has a critical crisis of what to do with his life, and will most likely commit suicide. We, the others, are just the same. We seldom remember the ups, only the downs.

This whole seemingly serious subject makes me think of a beautiful song by Bad Pollyanna: Invincible Girl, which quite sums up what I want to say today:

What doesn't kill you makes you wonder if it's all the same

It's harder to love and so simple to hate

It doesn't scare me when the demons come out to play

I know their secrets, I know their pain.

and:

Now I'm the invincible girl, don't need you to save me from this world

For nothing can hurt the unbeatable girl

I'll stand by the bridges I have burned...

My advices would be: try to seek for professional assistance whenever possible, otherwise, try to accept the fact that you are different and find something to occupy your mind with: find a hobby, try something new, put yourself among positiveness. Little by little you will find it easier to cope up with contingencies and fickleness of mind. I am lucky enough to find peace in makeup: I have my wishlist and goals to achieve, whether it is to perfect the liner technique or just to save enough to afford a luxury makeup item, that keeps me going. The excitement of ordering new things, waiting for them to arrive and experimenting with them is my kind of positivity. I cannot say that I was saved, but to put it out there: I am partially converted.

We wish to be able to escape this cage of depression, but we simultaneously shamefully enjoy being trapped inside. Because in the end, we are just ourselves, and normal is not the norm, it's just a uniform.