Walking on Broken Glass

I am currently reading a book by Kathryn Green-McCreight and in the book she put a very accurate description on how depression feels. Far better than I've been able to describe it to anyone, and as I read I was almost screaming "Yes! Yes! Exactly how I'm feeling"...

I am not necessarily sad when I am depressed. I am not necessarily "down." Sometimes I just have a gnawing, overwhelming sense of grief, with no identifiable cause. I feel completely alone; darkness is my only companion. I feel as if I am walking barefoot on broken glass. When one steps on broken glass, the weight of one's body grinds the glass in further with every movement. The weight of my very existing grids the shards of grief deeper into my soul. When I am depressed, every thought, every breath, every conscious moment hurts.


She is dead on with that description. Some people don't understand how this can be physically exhausting and taxing, but, please believe me, it is. I cannot explain it. Every thing I do hurts. I have no energy or motivation to do anything except sit and lay in the dark.

Think of putting yourself in a boxing ring and throwing punches for 18 hours straight. How would you feel after the fight? Tired? Worn down? Exhausted? I am fighting a battle and it takes everything in me to do simple tasks like get up and go to class. It is completely and totally tiring and wearing down on me.

I have learned to use sleeping as an escape. It seems that the only way not to hurt is to cease being a center of conciousness. I do not want to burden others or impose misery upon them, so I have sort of quit talking about my feelings if you will.

But, back to the broken glass analogy- everything hurts! If someone does something my mind completely turns it to make it seem like it was the worst thing in the world, and it was my fault. I can't explain it. I am working in therapy on thought-stopping so that I don't think that way anymore, and then lash out at someone else in anger. It hurts the other person probably as much as it hurts me.

Any missed point on an assignment, note played wrong in music, word that I misspoke, etc. stabs me and makes me feel completely and totally awful about everything.

So, I'm working on steadying my step as I walk along the glass. I'm still recovering, so I'm going to get hurt and feel this pain for a while yet. But, as I continue with therapy and we find a good balance of medications, I'll walk off of the majority of the glass.

I'm pretty sure that everything I just processed will not make sense to many readers. That's okay. Please don't try and comprehend. Just understand that what I'm going through is so, so hard.

And I know many of you who keep up with this are probably still praying regularly. I ask for your prayers and encouragement more now than ever as things sort of took a turn for the worse this weekend. I'm not giving up on myself- I promise, but, I ask that you don't give up on me either.