I don't really know how to explain this without making it sound much darker than I mean it, but whenever I fall back into a particularly depressive period, one of the strongest feelings I get is almost a sense of anger or unfairness about the fact that I have to be alive.
I've struggled with depression for quite a while, and lately it feels like being depressed is almost my default state. Sometimes I manage to climb out of it for a few days or a week and actually feel hopeful, interested in things, maybe even excited about life. But it often takes very little for something to happen and for me to fall all the way back down again.
And whenever that happens, I start thinking: I never actually chose to be here.
Yet because I'm here, there are all these things I'm automatically expected to do just to continue existing.
Work is probably the clearest example for me. The idea of spending most of my life working a normal 9-to-5 job just so I can afford to survive genuinely depresses me. I don't come from a wealthy family, I don't currently have some highly marketable skill that would allow me to escape that system, and realistically I need to find a job. I know that's simply how life works for the vast majority of people, and I'm not saying I'm somehow entitled to be exempt from it.
That's actually part of what bothers me.
I didn't choose the original condition of being alive, but now that I am alive, I have to fulfil certain conditions in order to keep living. And when I'm already struggling just to feel okay, there's something about that that feels incredibly unfair.
What makes that feeling even stronger is the sense that there isn’t really an alternative. I can’t depend on my family forever or keep feeling like a burden to them, so if I stay alive, at some point I have to work, support myself and do all these things even when I feel emotionally and sometimes almost physically unable to do them. And when I’m at my lowest, that creates this horrible feeling of being trapped: I don’t actually want to die, and I don’t want to end my life, but my depressed mind starts telling me that death is the only real way of opting out of all these obligations. Otherwise, if I’m here, I have to keep participating. I think that feeling of having no real escape is part of what makes me so angry.
It's not only about work either. When I'm deeply depressed, life in general starts feeling like a collection of responsibilities, difficulties and things I have to endure simply because I happened to be born. And I find myself thinking, why am I obligated to participate in something I never agreed to participate in?
When I'm doing better, I don't experience life entirely this way. I can see things I genuinely want from it. I can enjoy music, art, people, conversations, places, little experiences, and sometimes even feel excited about what my life could become. That's partly why this feeling confuses me so much. My perception of existence can change dramatically depending on how depressed I am.
But when I'm at my lowest, I don't just feel sad. I feel angry that existence isn't optional in the first place. Angry that I was put into a life that requires things from me when sometimes I don't feel equipped or willing to give them.
I don't know if this makes sense to anyone else. I'm curious whether other people experience this particular feeling too: not necessarily just wanting to “give up,” but actually resenting the fact that you were born into a life you never chose and are nevertheless expected to participate in.
And if you do experience it, does that feeling change when your depression gets better? Have you found a way of building a life that feels more like something you chose, rather than something you're just obligated to get through?
