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Living in a Hole

2021-01-28

#reflection

My entire life, for as long as I can remember, I've been living in a hole.

This is a personal story of mine - a reflection on my past struggles, fears, and failures. This is a trigger warning - I may briefly mention topics such as suicide and self infliction.

For as long as I have been alive to remember, I have struggled with depression. Depression is a emotionally-affecting mental illness caused by an unnatural deficiency in the neurotransmitter serotonin. In modern language, depression is sometimes referred to as a perpetual or unwarranted sadness, but I think depression is much more than sadness. I consider it to be a lack of hope. Depression can manifest in a variety of different forms ranging from situational depression (i.e. depression due to an emotionally provoking situation) to seasonal depression (depression that only presents itself during certain seasons) to dysthymia (perpetual depression). For those who have been fortunate to never experience any form of depression, my experience with depression is vaguely something like this:

Imagine you're living in 10 meter deep hole just wide enough for a single person. Everyone lives up on the surface except you. You're able to communicate with people by talking up to the opening of the hole, and they are able to communicate with you by speaking down into the hole. But you will never be able to leave the hole, nor will they be able to help you out of the hole. You must learn to live in that dark, lonely hole for the rest of your life.

Since I was young, I've known in my heart that I was different from others, yet I could not express the reasoning behind my feelings, nor could I control my emotions. Most people didn't understand what I felt when I tried to explain my struggles to them, and my parents did not understand my lack of satisfaction or lack of enjoyment in everyday activities. Because of depression, I've spent my whole life searching for that hope which I fail to possess.

Growing up with this monster made me question my very identity. Who I was. Who I claimed to be.

As a person of mixed Taiwanese and Caucasian descent, I felt like an outsider in both the Caucasian community and the Asian-American community. I also struggled with my sexuality. Society forces men and women into black boxes that tell them how to behave and how to communicate. My feminine personality was forced to fit into a masculine tough stereotype. I felt like I was wearing another person's skin.

I felt no pride my nationality and no pride in my sexuality. I didn't know who I was. I had an absence of identity.

How did this absence of identity affect my personal growth? I spent most of my years searching for my own identity, my hope. I explored. I experimented. In many cases, my frantic reaches to "solve my illness" and "find myself" backfired and pushed me further down. No amount of drugs, relationships, sex, pills, self-infliction, personal achievements, or suicidal tendencies could ever "fix" my mental illness and tell me who I was.

And while I lived in the darkest pits of hell for a long period of time, this narrative isn't about that.

This narrative is a story of how I managed to overcome such a monster as looming as depression.

My frantic desparation to fix myself culminated in the lowest points of my life during my time in undergrad. I came to the startling conclusion that nothing will ever fix my depression. Nothing will ever be able to distinguish my turbulent emotional state. No one will ever be able to remove the illness plaguing my mind.

And I learned that living with depression is ok. It's ok to live in a turbulent emotional state. Instead of fighting the illness I've spent my entire life trying to vanquish, I have learned to live with my depression. Grow with it. Understand it. Although depression detracts and destroys how we experience life normally, I have come to appreciate how much my own battle with depression has done for me.

Depression has taught me humility by restricting my ego. Depression restricts my natural ability to feel proud or deserving. Even now, I'm grateful for the illness that almost made me take my own life.

Depression has given me a stronger sense of humor. Although I can't generate innate joy and hope, I want to make others I interact with laugh and feel the joy that I can only feel superficially.

Depression has also given me a sense of determination. I am determined to succeed regardless of my hinderances that set me apart from others, and my illness forces me to push myself farther and harder to achieve the same as everyone else.

Finally, I have developed a stronger sense of exploration. I have come to appreciate the arts more - pieces made to symbolize others' suffering and oppression. Through the arts, people express their most vulnerable states, and I find myself drawn to artistic people because of that.

As I have accepted depression as a part of my identity, I have developed a stronger sense of self. I now listen to myself and attend to my own needs, wants, fears, and struggles. I have accepted that I do not belong to the Caucasian or Asian-American community, and I do not belong to the male or female gender - I am my own person. I have discovered who I am, and that is the most profound acknowledgement I have ever achieved. Only now, after 21 years of life, do I consider myself truly free.

How did I tame this monster within me? I know many people struggle with depression as well. To be clear, I still struggle with my depression. The absence of joy. The constant desire to kill myself. But I have tamed it and maintain my unwarranted emotional state. Here are a few methods which have helped me tame the monster within me in hopes that my struggles and experimentation might help others with the same problem.

Writing. I have found that the best way to deal with unwarranted, unavoidable emotions is to express them in their fullest capacity. By expressing your unfiltered emotions, you release them and free yourself from their grasp. I have been keeping an emotional log ever since middle school, expressing my mind in writing whenever I have felt extreme emotions and needed to release them. I'm publicizing them in hopes that people will read them and learn from them. Unfortunately, many of my physical notebooks were lost in the process of moving to university, but all of my writing from 2018 and forward has been preserved. And yes, I continually write in my emotional log to this day.
Music. Music has been a large part of my life ever since I was young. Both the consumption and creation of music helps me see that not everything needs to have a straightforward purpose or rhyme. I have been told that music speaks directly to the soul, and I abide by that. Recently I have been playing more guitar because of its ease of access - if I need to calm my emotions or live through them, what better way to do that than by picking up my guitar and strumming?
Yoga. Yoga as an East Asian practice is a blanket term comprised of meditation, physical exercises, and other techniques designed to help someone attain a higher state of consciousness. In particular, I personally practice secular breathing meditation and stretching. I have found that clearing the body of all hinderances clears the mind. With a clear mind, the body is capable of anything and everything. Because of this, I never say to myself, "I can't do this." or "that's impossible!" because I know that truly anything can be achieved through willpower and strength.

If you struggle with depression or mental illness as well - I'm here to say that I empathize with you. It is impossible for me to perfectly understand your situation and your feelings, but I'm here to let you know - you're not alone in this struggle.

All of my life I've been living in a hole - but I've come to love and appreciate that hole for making me who I am. While I am still not perfect, I aim to always do better and improve upon myself. While I am not entirely proud of my journey to get to where I am today, I wanted to share my own personal journey and struggles because I believe learning from experiences make us who we are and help us to grow into beautiful people.