I think the thing a lot of people without chronic depression don't realize about it is that it's not just sitting around feeling sad. It's having a voice in your head that is constantly telling you everything you say and do is the worst and you should spare others your presence

That voice is great at making arguments for it & as much as anyone else tells you not to listen to it, to love/accept yourself because (x), they're not the ones whispering in your ear when you're trying to get to sleep. It's that voice, combing through everything you've ever done

So you can say, how could you be depressed? Look at these things you have going for you!

But the voice doesn't care. It's reminding you how when you were angry you were a jerk, when you reached out it was pathetic, when you did nothing it was because you are useless.

It tells you how you let everyone down, how the people you love hate you, how any recognition you receive makes you a fraud. When you do fail or let people down, it's mortar to those bricks. They wall you in, like Admontillado, but the one sealing you up is yourself.

Every time a Well Known Person commits suicide people say, how could they do it? That's how. It doesn't matter what you have. In fact, the more you have the less you feel you deserve it. Then others say "what a coward!" and you, the depressed person, think "I must be one too."

"Look at how angry people get at people who have the same thoughts I do," you reason, even as people are sharing suicide hotline numbers. "I'd better keep quiet."

Because people do get mad, or scared, or freak out. And sometimes you just want to say, that voice is there. Again.

You don't want advice or sympathy or even a conversation about it. You just want to say, "the voice is here", because compliments are hollow and suggestions are abstract and in this very moment the self-hatred won't go away. If you want to understand, that's the key.

Anyway, I'm not looking for help. I just want people who don't know to understand and people who do know to feel heard. It's not always just The Sads.

And with that, a mouse has squeaked somewhere near the steps and the cat is investigating so it is time to bid you goodnight.

One last thing before I go: if you've lost someone to depression, I'm so sorry. I can't speak to every situation but just know that often people live through thousands of days for the people they love but unfortunately it only takes one that they can't to end things.