On depression days, we struggle. It's hard and we lose footing, but we must keep going. Today is one of those days for me. That deep melancholy sets in and the hope is sucked from the day. This leaves us without hope and hopeless. The ability to see anything in the future but a continuation of the past, that ability is lost during depression.

I can't see it, so it must not exist. I don't understand how it might turn out a way different from what I already know. Does this prophecy self-fulfill? Hopelessness says we can't see how things will be any different. As this creeps to a paradigm and view of life, the future is more and more bleak. That's hopelessness. When that feeling is extended to the end of time, the reasons for living disappear. Why go through it when we know the end?

These thoughts lead to the allure of death. Death is the ultimate defeat. If we die from our own hands, it is an admission that we couldn't handle it, that we couldn't see how it would change, and how we chose not to go through this torture just to see how it all plays out when the happenings to this point would lead any person to believe there is no other outcome that is likely, and it doesn't make sense to bet on the unlikely. This is the shattering of hopes when those situations turn out the exact way we predicted. This reinforces our sense of knowledge in outcomes, strengthening our resolve that hope is gone, strengthening the feeling that there is only one way out. The same way we get out of paying taxes and student loans.

Depression sucks. Fuck that. Seriously, fuck that. I forgive myself for thinking that death is the only solution. My mind doesn't know any better, and it is my responsibility to show a different outcome. It will all work out, I will be just fine, I'm okay. Gotta learn how to do that.

This is Learning Made Hard.