Light at the end of the tunnel

Earlier this week, a friend posted a link to Hyperbole and a Half's post on depression (here), and something in it struck home. Every word, every sentence, every bit of it was what I go through on a daily basis.

It is hard for most people to understand how soul-sucking depression is. Everything seems muted, dull, less shiny. What once entertained us now sits in corners collecting dust; those who we call friend drift away because we retreat into ourselves. We go through the motions of eating, sleeping, working, waiting for something to get better, but knowing it won't.

Reaching out is hard, because we do not think anyone will understand what we are going through. We fear that people will look down on us because we aren't normal or right in the head.

And you know what? Sometimes we are right.

We are constantly told everything will be okay, that everything will work out in the end. Well-meaning friends suggest finding hobbies, family members encourage us to go out and meet people.

They don't understand that none of it matters to us, the broken, the depressed, the lonely. We are trapped in a prison that has no walls, no doors, no guards. There seems to be no escape from the monotony, the apathy.

To some of us, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Our mental walls collapse and the only way to end the pain is to end it all, because who would miss us? We don't fit in with our families, our friends don't understand us (if we have any friends left at all), and our beloved pets would be better off with people who would play with them.

So we give up.

People tell me all the time that suicide is the easy way out, that living is hard. From our point of view, living is easy because we're just existing and going through the motions. Making a conscious choice to end our lives is hard, following through is even harder. We are consumed by pain that never seems to end, and we just want to rest.

Since I tried to kill myself in March, my life has seen some improvement. I am seeing a psychiatrist on a regular basis, and a therapist weekly. Medications have helped stabilize me, balance out my mood, but I'm still far from whole and normal(ish).

I have good days where I can clean, cook delicious meals, talk and laugh with my friends, and I have bad days, where I just curl up on the couch and cry, ignoring the world. Today was a better day, but who knows what tomorrow will bring.

The lost art of common courtesy

I love talking to people -- friends, coworkers, random strangers. I'll chitchat with the guy at the burger joint about a trip to North Carolina; commiserate with the cashier about unruly children and complain about the weather with a random customer.

One thing that pops up more and more these days is a lack of simple and common courtesy. It's not taught by a majority of parents, dropped from schools and completely forgotten in the workplace.

I'm not that old, I actually just hit a quarter of a century a year and a half ago, but observing people my age and younger is completely painful. I'm not even going to touch the topics of constantly texting, either in a formal restaurant or while driving, or the obsession with vapid television stars and who they are currently in bed with. Those things are trivial, honestly.

What I have a problem with is that most people today constantly interrupt anyone who is speaking, because their sudden thought is clearly more important than anything else anyone might say; they critique others for a lack of respect (waitstaff, cashiers, etc.), when a simple "please" or "thank you" never escapes their lips; and they always bring the conversation back to themselves, instead of inquiring about others.

Some of the best conversationalists I've ever had the pleasure of talking to were ones that listened, asked questions to clarify a topic, or simply just wanted to know more about a person. They shared information about themselves, but kept it light and engaging. They were genuinely curious about everyone they met, and left something behind at the end of every conversation - a smile.

Personally, I'm not the best conversationalist. I'm shy, I tend to forget the punchlines of jokes more often than not, and my sense of humor is a little off. I know I could ask more questions about people, become more engaged with them, but when I try, my tongue seems to stick to the roof of my mouth.

My complaint goes beyond the general public, though; people don't respect each other in the workplace anymore. Employees are abrupt or rude with customers, or vent their frustrations at them. Email etiquette is a lost art, emails sent out with a general tone of "What do you want? Why are you bothering me?" or sent out in cutesy colors or an entire paragraph in the subject line. Coworkers interrupt other coworkers while they are talking with customers, vendors or potential applicants.

We spend so much time concerned with ourselves, instead of engaging with the world around us, and treating others as we ourselves wish to be treated.

There is no one specific cause to the death of common courtesy, it's been on the decline for years, but it is still sad to see it go.

Smiles make the world go round

I'm not one to stand on a soap box and preach about inequality or social injustice to the entire world (though I will defend my beliefs to friends and the like), but one thing I am adamant about is that we need more smiles in the world.

Yes, smiles.

Smiles and kindness.

We go through our days wrapped in a bubble of self-absorption, only concerned with our immediate affairs. "I need to pick up potatoes from the grocery store." "There's traffic on the highway, I should leave work 10 minutes early." We never stop and look at the people around us, and think about how we impact their lives, even briefly. The cashier at the grocery store, the toll worker taking our change. 

Everyone has ideas for how to make the world a better place, and it's all done on a grand scheme - make everyone go to church, remove religion from government and schools, add purple goats to every street corner, but people never think about what they can do to make the world better, even in a small way.

I'm not talking about recycling, or turning off the lights. I'm talking about our interactions with other human beings. We're polite and friendly to our peers, colleagues, family; people who we consider important or crucial in our lives, for whatever reason, but we give no thought to those we interact with daily, people who have no names, or whose faces blur together after a while.

What I'm trying to say is smile. Smile at the cashier when you finish checking out, be pleasant to the waitress who takes your order. Say "please" and "thank you" to the busboy at the hotel. This isn't something profound, or based in a religious book - it's common courtesy that has gone the way of the dodo. 

So many problems can be avoided if we are simply civil to each other, no matter what our political persuasion is, or our religious beliefs or the color of our skin. That can all be put aside for a few minutes just to smile.

I'm a firm believer that if you smile at someone, you pass that smile along. A smile costs you nothing, but it could brighten someone's day. If I pick up an order at a restaurant, it's amazing what a simple quick of the mouth will do to someone's mood and attitude. People don't expect it in this day and age, and it saddens me.

It might be a bit naive, or a bit outdated, but I believe in starting small.

So next time you go to the store, instead of texting a friend, smile at the cashier, so they can pass that smile to their next customer, who can, in turn, pass it onto someone else. And who knows? Maybe that smile might come back to you when you need it one day.