Meditation for June 1st, 2016
Dear Depressed Person,
I hope this letter finds you well, but probably not. Maybe you just smiled at someone and said you were doing great and thanks for asking. Maybe you asked them how’re they were doing and they told you. Maybe you pretended to listen while you just wished you were anywhere but there. I know that you aren’t well, you’re depressed.
I know that depression isn’t sad or self-pity or anything to do with an event that causes a reaction. You’re just depressed.
You either embrace it or you pretend that everything is alright. Either way, it isolates you. Sometimes people try and relate, but they are explaining sadness or having a bad day, but not life crippling depression.
This letter is just to say I love you and to hang on. I know that sometimes life just seems fucking futile. Why try? Why trudge through mud while normal people, people who do not suffer from depression, glide by with ease, but I can tell you that it is worth hanging on.
I want you to know that we are sensitive to the world. We can get so burned by it. We seek solutions in bottles, pills, needles, sex, gambling, danger and anything else to get us out of that dark place. We see the ugliness of it all. We see how very real people’s hideousness can really be, but at the same time we can see the beauty.
Normal people can’t. They want to see the movie and not read the book. They want to have everything fit in their nice and neat boxes while we know nothin belongs anywhere.
You, depressed person, are beautiful, worthy, smart, creative, funny and I love you. I don’t even have to know you to know this. I know depression and depressed people are the best people I know.
This is why I’m tired of losing you. I have spent the last three plus decades watching the greatest people burn to the ground. They die with needles in their arms, they popped too many pills or they just end it themselves.
I wish every time hat I could have said something, did something, been something better and more worth living for, but I know that all those things are no match for depression.
You can tame it with healthy living, therapy and sometimes medication. You can learn to know how to take care of yourself when you are in the darkness. You can learn to owe nobody anything for having depression. You just have it, and that’s okay.
What I want to tell you is that you are special. Depressed people are loved because we are so deep and real. When we know someone we wear no more masks. We are looked upon for our strength because what we have to endure by our own minds is harrowing. People are attracted to us.
What I want you to know is that you give people hope, happiness and love by being who you are. Even when you struggle, you are an inspiration to someone that loves you.
You don’t have to drown in chemicals and isolation if you want. You might think you deserve an early death, but you don’t, you deserve as much love and support as anyone. You can get help. I have been helped and I have been loved even when I couldn’t see it.
Sometimes I still don’t see the love and hope around me. Sometimes my view of the world is skewed by Facebook and my customer service job. Sometimes I just don’t want to anymore. I just want to sleep forever, or at least for a few days. I get so tired. I see nothing to look forward to even when there are great things to look forward to. I feel no love even though there is proof otherwise.
Then it passes. Sometimes in a day, or a week and sometimes it takes months, but it passes. I know it’ll happen again, but I also have hope that I’ll enjoy some of my life. I try and help people when I can and I try and be creative and do the things I love with the people I love.
Depressed person, I love you. I have felt your pain and when I can see your pain I feel it. It hurts me so bad. I love you and I hope I can give you some kind of hope or at least some laughter. I want you to know that there are things to live for and things to be in your right mind for.
I wish that this letter cured depression. I wish that you read this and you have a good cry and then never, ever hurt again. I wish that you just had regular emotions instead of the big cement block we swim in. I wish that I could just say ‘I love you’ and you’d be free.
I wish I could be free as well.
Anyway, this letter is for the junkies, the drunks, the whores and the hustlers. This letter is for the artists, the writers and the dreamers. This letter is for the people who try to put this shit into some kind of communication for the regular folks to understand. This is for the kids and the codgers. Please know I love you.
Yours in light and laughter,
David Everett Fisher