A young depressed mind

I’m 31 now, and I find myself trying to remember how things were in my early 20s. There’s nostalgia for sure – I had a phone that could only text and call, and I’d often leave it alone for half a day knowing nothing important was waiting for me. In between classes at university, I’d march straight to the coffee shop with the large, never-cleaned sofas, and curl up with a filtered brew for $1.50 and some of the theological greats in literary form. I’d spend hours in this haven, barely ever studying for my degree, but studying how life could be, dreaming of a big life beyond Ann Arbor.

But what I’m not nostalgic for is the heaviness that every morning brought. A deep emotional pain that felt like a man sitting on my chest every morning. I’d sometimes spend hours in that haze, waiting to be snapped out of it. I had friends who were truly depressed, friends with bipolar, friends that felt the pain so strongly that they hurt themselves. I figured the everyday melancholy wasn’t so bad compared to these people, that I didn’t have the big D, just the little S (the sads).

Mornings nowadays feel like a clean slate, a realisation that I’ve lived life for awhile now, and many of the things I previously feared have happened, and I’ve survived it all.

I wish I could tell my 20 year old self that just because her depression looked different, it  doesn’t mean it wasn’t worthy of treating. Undermining it meant that I felt rough for years, and found myself in situations where I accepted a form of love and care that were hardly worthy of those words.

And perhaps my 20 year old self could also teach me a thing or two – how afternoons spent reading, writing, and dreaming are actually the stepping stones to making soul-affirming decisions. I’m sure she would also call me a twat when I tell her I spent four hours on my phone yesterday.