This has lied dormant for too long... I need a place to vent again.
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I wish depression were a rational beast. I wish I could confront it with facts and evidence, and it would sulk back to whatever lair it crawled out of. But no, it is an irrational creature; it has no use for the truth of things. I can rally against it within my mind, but can just as soon will away a brick wall as will away my depression; the fight simply drains me and leaves me no closer to my goals and in a worse state than when I began. I know the truth of things: I have friends, they’re just far away right now; my family cares for me, we’re simply in too cramped of quarters; that my financial and romantic and career and shelter situations will all sort themselves out in good time, if I’m patient. These rational arguments are of no use when fighting that gaping maw whose only desire is to swallow you whole, suffocate you, drown you in despair and self-doubt. Facts are useless weapons in this battle. The only effective strategy is time – wait the beast out. It will wander off to other prey eventually; leave me at peace while it haunts others for a time. But its ally is also time, for in time it will inevitably seek me out again. This is a disease without a cure, only treatments to delay the beast’s visits, and shorten their duration. It will always come back for me, sooner or later. Believing that it won’t is simply setting myself up for failure, and then it wins all the more. The truth of it, that it will return and haunt me again and again and again, is a useless weapon against the depression itself, but acceptance of that truth is the only way to keep its jaws from truly rending me in half. This, too, will pass if I keep time and patience as my allies in this war.
