Living with Depression, or, How Can The Broken Component Accurately Diagnose And Fix Itself?

I have Depression.  Lots of it.  Call it "Major Depression" or "Severe Depression" or whatever you want.  It's always there, it always sucks, and it's always next to impossible to describe what it's like to live with to people who don't have it.
But I'm gonna try, and I'm gonna use a computer analogy.  So if you don't like those, you're not gonna like this post.

See, it's tough to deal with depression and hear all the well-meaning comments about "get help", "there's help out there", "get medication", "get therapy", etc.  Because all those rely on me recognizing I'm broken and taking action to fix it.  And things like "well just pray more" or "trust in God and everything will be okay" or "just smile and ACT like it's ok and you'll be OK" - super not helpful.  Trusting in God gets me through the day.  It doesn't make the problem go away.

It's like my brain is a computer, with a glitchy health-check program.  It runs a diagnostic, and comes back with "All OK!  No problems here!" when it's clear to literally everyone else that nothing is OK, and I have all the problems.  So of course I don't get help.  Why would I get help - I don't need it!  I'm OK.  My internal health check said so.
"Sure", you say, invisible straw-person of the internet, "but you can just ignore it and know it's broken and do the opposite!" Yeah.  Right.  That requires that the broken part knows it's broken.  So now my software needs to recognize that the software itself is bad.  And it has to know in what way  so that I can get the help I need.  Plus, it's not like my brain always plays "opposite day".  Every minute, of every day, it's giving reports to me.  And I have to filter them, and evaluate them, and decide whether or not they're useful, valuable, and relevant. These reports sound a lot like:

• "You suck."
• "You're stupid."
• "Nobody wants you around."
• "Everyone else does everything better than you."
• "Maybe you should just die and leave the world a better place."
• "People only tolerate you because they feel sorry for you."
• "One of these days they're going to figure out you have no idea what you're doing and fire you."
• "Nobody likes you."
• "System OK"
• "I'm having a good time"
• "You only think it's a good time because everyone is lying to you"
• "You're a bad person"
• "You're worthless"
• "I'm valuable.  Shut it"
• "People DO care about me notheydon't"
• "People would be happier if you weren't in their lives"

And these happen every second, of every minute, of every day.  I have to fight the negative messages with fact, and highlight the positive ones.  This fight will never EVER end.  I can't ever win.  This isn't a fight that I can do once, and then hooray, I've taken the correct medication and gone to enough therapy, the Depression Demons have been Vanquished Forever!

No.  This fight will go on until I die.  This fight takes place in my head literally all. the. time.  I'm constantly battling those thoughts and feelings of inadequacy, of doubt, of isolation, of worthlessness.  I do it with fact and with knowledge because my emotions will NOT rule me.  But it's still a fight.  It's still a struggle.  And it's utterly, completely exhausting.  Some days I have no energy for anything except the fight.  Some days I don't even have enough FOR the fight - and yet somehow, I keep going.  I have no choice. 

Each statement must be acknowledged, evaluated, and either discarded or acted upon.  Because sometimes, they're correct.  I've done something wrong and it has to be fixed.  I've done something RIGHT and I should acknowledge that and revel in it for a few minutes.  I'm having a bad day and need to know why.  I'm having a good day and need to enjoy it.  Whatever the message is, I need to pay attention to it.  

So it may look like I'm distracted.  Yeah, sometimes I am.  Sometimes I'm not paying attention to anything, because I need a break from the cacophony.  Sometimes I focus on brain candy because I need something fun and mindless.  

My system diagnostics still run.  They still give me inaccurate reports, and sometimes they give me accurate reports.  How do I know what the difference is?  Evaluation.  Analysis.  Taking facts and comparing them to the messages.  

I fight depression every second of my life.  It is the hardest fight I've ever had.  It won't ever end.  But it's worth the fight, because I will live my life to the best of my ability, rather than letting my depression define me.

My name is Kim.  And this is how I live with depression.