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rainbowfic2014-01-14 11:53 pm
bookblather) wrote in rainbowfic2014-01-14 11:53 pm
Glitter 21: Dear You
Author: Kat
Title: Dear You
Story: In the Heart
Colors: Glitter 21 (What you own. - Rent)
Supplies and Materials: Fingerpainting (epistolary format), frame, watercolors (the love letter project), glitter (connect), novelty beads (the same kind of love for a stranger)
Word Count: 772
Rating: PG
Summary: This is the most important thing you need to know.
Warnings: serious discussion of chronic depression
Notes: Written at least partly to myself.
Dear you:
This is the first thing you must know: you can survive this.
I know it doesn't feel like you can, right now. I know it doesn't feel like anything will ever get better. Like you're going to hurt this way for the rest of your life, no matter what you do, or what people say to you. The thing is, that's not actually true.
I can tell you that because I've lived through what you are living through right now. I still live through it, sometimes, although it isn't anywhere near as bad as it was when I first began to deal with it. My specific diagnosis is major depressive disorder, with comorbid generalized anxiety disorder, and although I wasn't diagnosed until I was seventeen, I believe I've dealt with them since I was thirteen—puberty, in other words.
In that way, I am somewhat exceptional. Most depressive disorders have their onset in the twenties and thirties. It's not an uncommon disorder, though. I don't know exact numbers, but something like five percent of the adult population of the United States fits the diagnostic criteria during any given year. It's not strange. You are not alone in feeling how you do right now. That's the second thing you have to know. You are not alone.
Here's the third thing: right now you are feeling awful. That probably sounds rather patronizing, but it isn't how I mean it. People have probably told you that your feelings are irrational, and maybe you feel yourself that you shouldn't feel so bad, because there's nothing wrong in your life, or what's wrong isn't so bad. Maybe that's true. Maybe your feelings are irrational. Maybe your life isn't so bad. That doesn't change the fact that you are feeling awful.
The thing about depression is that it lies to you. When people tell you that your feelings are irrational, it latches on to that and uses it to make you feel worse. Of course your feelings are irrational; why can't you make them go away? You must not want them to go away, you must not be trying hard enough. But that's all a lie. Wanting to feel better doesn't always make you feel better. Sometimes you can try all you like, and you don't ever feel better.
Sometimes you need help. It took failing a jury in college and a talk from one of my professors before I even realized that maybe I should get some help. I don't know if I didn't think that I deserved it, or if I simply didn't realize that there was something wrong—that's another thing that depression can do to you, it can convince you that being sad and apathetic and in pain all the time is just how the world is supposed to be. All I do know is that once I got help, both psychiatric and theraputic, I suddenly felt like I could survive. I wasn’t so smothered anymore. I could do things again. I could get out of bed.
I want to emphasize that I couldn't do it without help. That's not a bad thing. I needed help, so I got it. It's okay to need help, and it's okay to get it. Really, however you feel right now? It's okay for you to feel that way. No one should shame you or make you feel guilty for feeling as you do. It sucks, it's awful, but it doesn't mean that you are bad or awful.
One more thing. Remember how I said depression lies to you? Right now, it's probably telling you that you are worthless, that no one could possibly love you or even like you. It's probably telling you that no one would miss you. That nobody loves you, anywhere.
This is the most important thing for you to know, above and beyond anything else I've written: whatever happens, however you feel, whatever you do, I love you. We've never met, I know, but I love you all the same. I know how you feel, and I know how painful it is, and I wish I could take that pain away from you. I wish I could take all your sorrow and guilt away. I wish I could make you see how precious you are.
You deserve to feel better. You deserve help. You deserve to do what you need to do in order to feel better. Your depression (and maybe some people) may tell you that you don't deserve anything, but they are lying. You deserve to be happy.
You deserve to be happy.
All my love,
Olivia Marhenke Foster
Title: Dear You
Story: In the Heart
Colors: Glitter 21 (What you own. - Rent)
Supplies and Materials: Fingerpainting (epistolary format), frame, watercolors (the love letter project), glitter (connect), novelty beads (the same kind of love for a stranger)
Word Count: 772
Rating: PG
Summary: This is the most important thing you need to know.
Warnings: serious discussion of chronic depression
Notes: Written at least partly to myself.
Dear you:
This is the first thing you must know: you can survive this.
I know it doesn't feel like you can, right now. I know it doesn't feel like anything will ever get better. Like you're going to hurt this way for the rest of your life, no matter what you do, or what people say to you. The thing is, that's not actually true.
I can tell you that because I've lived through what you are living through right now. I still live through it, sometimes, although it isn't anywhere near as bad as it was when I first began to deal with it. My specific diagnosis is major depressive disorder, with comorbid generalized anxiety disorder, and although I wasn't diagnosed until I was seventeen, I believe I've dealt with them since I was thirteen—puberty, in other words.
In that way, I am somewhat exceptional. Most depressive disorders have their onset in the twenties and thirties. It's not an uncommon disorder, though. I don't know exact numbers, but something like five percent of the adult population of the United States fits the diagnostic criteria during any given year. It's not strange. You are not alone in feeling how you do right now. That's the second thing you have to know. You are not alone.
Here's the third thing: right now you are feeling awful. That probably sounds rather patronizing, but it isn't how I mean it. People have probably told you that your feelings are irrational, and maybe you feel yourself that you shouldn't feel so bad, because there's nothing wrong in your life, or what's wrong isn't so bad. Maybe that's true. Maybe your feelings are irrational. Maybe your life isn't so bad. That doesn't change the fact that you are feeling awful.
The thing about depression is that it lies to you. When people tell you that your feelings are irrational, it latches on to that and uses it to make you feel worse. Of course your feelings are irrational; why can't you make them go away? You must not want them to go away, you must not be trying hard enough. But that's all a lie. Wanting to feel better doesn't always make you feel better. Sometimes you can try all you like, and you don't ever feel better.
Sometimes you need help. It took failing a jury in college and a talk from one of my professors before I even realized that maybe I should get some help. I don't know if I didn't think that I deserved it, or if I simply didn't realize that there was something wrong—that's another thing that depression can do to you, it can convince you that being sad and apathetic and in pain all the time is just how the world is supposed to be. All I do know is that once I got help, both psychiatric and theraputic, I suddenly felt like I could survive. I wasn’t so smothered anymore. I could do things again. I could get out of bed.
I want to emphasize that I couldn't do it without help. That's not a bad thing. I needed help, so I got it. It's okay to need help, and it's okay to get it. Really, however you feel right now? It's okay for you to feel that way. No one should shame you or make you feel guilty for feeling as you do. It sucks, it's awful, but it doesn't mean that you are bad or awful.
One more thing. Remember how I said depression lies to you? Right now, it's probably telling you that you are worthless, that no one could possibly love you or even like you. It's probably telling you that no one would miss you. That nobody loves you, anywhere.
This is the most important thing for you to know, above and beyond anything else I've written: whatever happens, however you feel, whatever you do, I love you. We've never met, I know, but I love you all the same. I know how you feel, and I know how painful it is, and I wish I could take that pain away from you. I wish I could take all your sorrow and guilt away. I wish I could make you see how precious you are.
You deserve to feel better. You deserve help. You deserve to do what you need to do in order to feel better. Your depression (and maybe some people) may tell you that you don't deserve anything, but they are lying. You deserve to be happy.
You deserve to be happy.
All my love,
Olivia Marhenke Foster