Lonely Caterpillar
 

It’s gotta get easier and easier somehow…

  No one really understands anyone else’s life. Do they? I mean we can have similar experiences and opportunities but no one’s path is exactly the same.

The path of depression is not one I ever wanted to be on. This path isn’t even my own, its one that runs along side mine and always has. Be it with my family, friends, husband it’s a path that has followed me, my whole life. That path is a really difficult one to navigate. The help to navigate that journey is improving, incredibly slowly, but it is improving. There is no doubt the people who have to walk that path, through no fault of their own have an incredibly difficult time. The decisions they face daily are painful and lonely and a massive challenge. I feel for them. I sympathise, I empathise, I want to help them, truly I do.

My path is the one that walks along side this one. The path itself is smoother, there are less pot holes, its better lit. I can see it’s a nice path and a I can appreciate all the nice things along my path, the flowers, the birds, the sunlight, the other people. The only problem with my path is that is joined to the depression path, which in itself isn’t a problem. I actually asked for this path to be joined with that one, I wanted to help share the positive stuff from my path over to the other path, I wanted my path to help hold up the other path when it got shaky. The problem comes in that the paths are joined with barbed wire, are there’s a gap between the two, its not a big gap but its very deep. There’s a very real potential to fall in that gap and be lost forever. Its possible to cross either way, but to overcome that gap, either way, can seem impossible. Sometimes the people on the other path are happy with their path, they don’t want this path, and fair enough, why should they. Sometimes they try to move my path further away, to widen that gap. Sometimes they move their path so far, its rocks the foundation of mine. Suddenly this path isn’t as pretty, its moves slightly out of the sunlight and the surface is a bit bumpier, the flowers have fallen into the gap and I got tangled in the barbed wire and although there are no physical scars, the fear of getting tangled again makes me cautious about bringing the paths together again.

Sometimes the paths can’t remain on the same course, their direction begins to drift too far. The gap simply gets too wide and both paths become too damaged to be able to repair each other. Whatever way each path goes you can see the join where the paths once connected, each path is forever shaped by the other.

You see even when depression isn’t your journey, it shapes you. It impacts how you navigate life. It effects your friendships. People know through how society teaches us to behave, that people with depression need support. The people living with those people also need support. The friends who understand why you always cancel, get fewer and fewer. The clubs that let you still join in when u skip several classes, are few and far between. The people who understand why your always so frustrated and exhausted are almost non-existent. People get bored of the complaining and they don’t understand why you can’t just change things for yourself. Supporting someone with depression is all consuming, at its worst it overshadows everything it comes into contact with. There is no room for logic or reason. There is no space for light to shine through and no method in which to force light in. You simply have to wait for it to lift. Living under someone else’s depression is difficult, the lack of control is frustrating, the responsibility overwhelming.

I realise this blog in itself is quite heavy, there is no happy ever after ending to this one. Some people I love have overcome depression and some have fallen into that gap. Sometimes it feels like this is an illness that will continue to spread and steal the people we love, sometimes we feel like were winning the battle and that love compassion and kindness will win out.

Whichever it is, remember to look up from your path, see who is running along beside you and check if they need a hug along the way.