The Silent Dread

 Sometimes, I really hate people. When I say "people", I am using it as a vastly generic term for most of humankind. I can't quite explain it, but a feeling of repulsion will sit in my gut whenever I see the particularly irritating or just plain awful side of humanity. Animals, on the other hand, have my whole heart. They can be as annoying as ever, and I will unconditionally adore them. So, why do I have an almost automatic disdain of people? Because we choose things. And, more often than not, our choices are terrible. I'm including myself in this; I know I am far from perfect. Hundreds of thousands of miles away from it, in fact. I have made some incredibly questionable choices in my lifetime. I have been told that my hatred of humanity is something within me that needs to be fixed. My jaded, cynical view of the world is my problem, not anyone else's. This might be true, to a degree. But overall, I disagree with this. I think more of us should be disgusted at th...

I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but I am currently on an antidepressant called Mirtazapine. Since my mental health was first noted in my medical records (I believe this was way back in 2011 when I had a psychotic breakdown) I have been prescribed so many different types of medications. Quetiapine was the most memorable for me, as it completely destroyed my quality of life. I know people who use it and function perfectly well on it, but it felt like a poison to me. I was 19 years old, sleeping until 3pm and still feeling exhausted. I wasn't running on autopilot. There was no pilot at all. I felt like I was in a coma. Unfortunately for me, I needed to remain on Quetiapine until my psychosis was handled. Thankfully, it eventually was. I was diagnosed with a stress-induced bout of psychosis, so I had to take myself away from my stressors, and boom. Psychosis gone. It did briefly return a few years later when I was experiencing more stress, but since then, I have been able to...

 A week from today, I will be turning 34 years old. Most people expect to feel a weighty burden slowly being lowered onto their shoulders as they approach their thirties. They think that if they're not yet married, or in the midst of a successful career, or owning property, or having children, then they have failed as a member of society. I was one of those people. As my 30th birthday loomed ever closer, I was filled with dread. I actually had the rare experience of having my 30th birthday during a global pandemic. This meant that I was on my own, only receiving words of congratulations through a text or a video call. For someone who had been accustomed to living alone for around 6 years by this point, I didn't mind this so much, although it was a little depressing. There I sat, in the silence of my flat, staring at my laptop as the time ticked to midnight. All the despair I was feeling leading up to this point, suddenly vanished. I can't really describe it well, but it was...

 Usually, when I get a surge of motivation seemingly out of nowhere, I try to grab onto it as tightly as I can before it dissolves through my fingers. During these dark times, that little boost can leave as quickly as it arrived, and usually, I'm not able to maintain it. I can actually feel it drain out of my body in the middle of a task and I'll go back to questioning what the point of it all is. I've reached a stage now where this little back and forth is fucking annoying to me, like a little sibling flicking me on the head. So, if I can't find motivation through natural means, then I will force it into my system using rage and spite as the fuel. I have important things to do today, and I am going to do them.  I have an email to write, regarding our housing application. I like to think of myself as pretty knowledgeable in this area, having successfully dragged myself out of homelessness not once but twice, with the help of the local council's housing system. My pa...

 Depression is so easily overlooked. You might think me a fool for stating something so seemingly ludicrous, but this is my truth. I do see that society has made some enormous leaps forward in terms of highlighting how serious depression is and not to take it lightly, but it remains invisible. I am not a strong person. Regardless of what I have been told countless times, I do not feel strength within my bones when I say that I have lived another day through my depression. Strength, to me, would be to end it all entirely, with a finality that only death can provide. However, I am too weak and too fearful to put myself through that. People tell me I have the wrong mindset. They tell me to go outside more, as if the sun can provide healing rays as it burns into my skin. They tell me to eat right, sleep well, and stay clean. The basic human needs. They don't realise that my knees buckle under the weight of my own darkness, that merely walking from the bedroom to the kitchen is a marath...