I Think A Lot, or On Depression

"i thought too long about dying
i forgot how to feel alive"
-how to feel alive by doefriends
I have a funny brain. I suppose that's one way of putting it.
For nearly 5 years, at least, my main driving force every day was picturing myself dead. I never imagined myself getting out of high school, let alone out of college. I never dreamed of things that could happen after.

Then, time passed. I got out of high school, out of college, and yet I'm still here. I don't know how. That's a lie, I do. A number of caring people in my life, some dumb luck, and a lack of ceiling beams in my home.
I think a lot about how I was/am able to pass as a mentally well individual. I grew up a "gifted kid." In all the accelerated classes, getting straight A's without studying, the whole thing. Thing is, at least a decade ago, adults didn't seem to recognize that you could be devastatingly depressed, and a good student. That maybe a student like this is able to understand the consequences of speaking truthfully about how they feel with any adult at school as they all are required to rat on you to a councilor or worse.
I think a lot about institutionalization. Not because I've ever been through it, but because the threat of it made me never seek help. As a kid, if you don't play your cards right, you can just end up torn from the only bits of community that are holding you together. That's not to say that institutionalization can't or hasn't helped people, I know people who it has, but as a scared teen, in my sober moments I never reached out for help, as to do so would be to throw away my limited amounts of autonomy.
I think a lot about abuse. For a few years, I had a partner. She was a saint, helping me through my darkest nights, repeatedly walking me back off of the cliff. I'm probably alive today because she cared. Yet, our relationship is in the past tense. I pushed her away, despite everything. I was under the demented thought that telling someone that you're only alive everyday is because of your relationship is sweet. Not, you know, incredibly abusive, making the person feel obliged to stay with you past the end of their feelings, because otherwise they're "killing" you. If there's one part of me that scares me, its how I would feel after telling her that I was at a low point again. Her concern for me making me feel a sickly joy wash over me. I scared her, and it felt good.
I think a lot about how I don't even know what brings me joy. I mean, I like hanging out with friends and talking with people, but feelings from that feel ephemeral. They stabilize me while ongoing, but within minutes of most conversations I'm back to my baseline. I don't really have things that bring me longer term joy.
I think a lot about the time I've lost. The hours laid out in bed, spiraling into worse and worse thoughts before I eventually pass out. The hangouts and events I've skipped from low energy. The missed connections, the "prime of my life" wasted laying around too upset with myself to move. How days melt away. Little tasks you meant to do that day end up pushed off for days or weeks.
I think a lot about depression feedback loops. You skip an event because your low energy, then you feel bad because your friends were expecting you. Next thing you know, you feel even worse, you're starved for social contact. Soon enough you're yelling at yourself about how you should've just fucking gone. Then you're tired. Too low energy for the next event you could really use.
I think a lot about how depression isn't an addiction, but it shares some contours. I don't think I'll ever be "cured," I'll always have the chance to relapse into worse thought spirals and suicidal ideation. Even this week I fell into a spiral, I was hanging out in voice chat, and my brain starts yelling at me: "you are meat." To the point that I have to mute and go non-verbal for a few hours. I'll always be recovering. But, in that, I can learn mechanisms to make myself function, to work through some bad days, and to lessen the worst of them. I went non-verbal and blasted music to get through this last low point, whereas I could easily see a younger version of myself crying in bed for hours. It's not sexy to point at that and go "that's progress! Really!" but it is.
I think a lot about coping mechanisms. Or, as I call them "The right shaped rock." How I probably will never be free from depressions grip on me, only get better and better at fighting back against its sudden intrusions. How to tell which coping mechanisms are maladaptive, which work, and which are just placebo or coincidence.
I'm better, genuinely. After coming out, my depression lessened, and now I'm on antidepressants as well which help, but, I'm not "fixed." I still have habits, impulses, moments. I still haven't relearned how to dream. How to have long term goals. How to be open with others. If I still would get that dark joy. How to avoid relapsing. What coping mechanisms are the best for me. Maybe these things will come with time. I hope they do. Until then, I just have to take things a day at a time, and see where I end up.
I wish I could think less. That it could all go away.
Yet, my depression is just as much a part of me as anything else, as much as I might hate it.