Sometimes I hate being so sensitive. It is like having no skin. The world and the medical field can be so damaging to highly sensitive people. A week ago I went to the dentist and he cleaned my teeth. My teeth are still hurting a week later. I worry they will never come good. It is really hard to get off medications as I am so sensitive to the slightest reduction in dose. Right now I am trying to come off a drug called olanzapine and this is stopping me from sleeping. I also still have a tremor and sometimes get “shocks” when I’m about to fall asleep which were caused from an antidepressant I stopped years ago. I have to wear industrial grade earmuffs when out or in the kitchen as I am so sensitive to noise. I feel people’s (and animal’s) pain as if it’s my own. And loss and disappointment, no matter how small, knock me down like Jack and Jill. A few weeks ago I saw something online that I wanted to buy, but the seller sold it to someone else. I am still stewing over it. Then today I found some medicine I’d left in the car over the summer. The packet said to store it below 30 degrees. I’ve ruined it, and it’s not easy to replace it either. I cannot bounce back from these things. They tip me deeper and deeper into my depression. But when things do go right, such as finding something I thought I’d lost, I get so elated it’s like going from the bottom of the ocean to the stars. There is no in between.

Because I can’t sleep, I’ve been sitting up watching movies. I just finished a documentary called “Unrest”. It is about a woman and her husband as they struggle with the woman’s illness (chronic fatigue syndrome). I can see many parallels with my depression. Just like chronic fatigue syndrome, it is like your life is on hold while the world goes on around you. Friends are having kids, raising kids, growing up and doing all the things people do when they grow up while you spend all your life in your bedroom watching the world pass by. I don’t know how much longer I can do this for. I told my psychologist that it’s like I have a degenerative illness or something. I’m decaying and wasting away and the world is just letting it happen. The other night I snapped. I was pacing around my bedroom blasting music and all I could think about was killing myself. I wrote at least ten distressing emails to my psychologist. It felt like I was locked in a sound proof room screaming. I heard sirens outside and a part of me hoped they were coming for me but no one came. Depression is such an invisible, stigmatised condition. You get people saying you’re not ill, thinking you’re ignoring them, that you’re lazy etc. But chronic fatigue syndrome and depression are very real illnesses. Depression sucks everything out of you, like the demontors in Harry Potter. You’re left with no motivation, no energy, no friends, no job, no purpose, no hobbies, nothing. All you can do to get by is sleep, so you sleep your life away. But sometimes it even takes that from you. Depression is like existing as a living corpse. Your spirit is gone, all that’s left is a physical body. People with depression do not “take” their lives as there is no life left to take.

Both depression and chronic fatigue can be extremely debilitating. Every little thing feels so overwhelming when you have depression. My mum keeps telling me to clean my messy car and put things away. These things take so much out of me, she has no idea. Maintaining friendships is extremely difficult as well. Often I can only reply to one message a month. Sometimes I am able to do better, other times worse. I am lucky to have friends that don’t mind my slow communication pace and still stick around. I want people to know I value them even when they don’t hear from me.

The people in “Unrest” are still searching for a cure. Unfortunately I am too. I have tried many different medications and therapies but continue to suffer. I have lost my entire 20s now. I am feeling really upset about turning 30 later this year, but am also amazed I have made it to this age. A few years ago I was extremely thin and my family thought I may even die. I am frequently suicidal, and have had several close brushes with death during my life so far. I suspect I am somebody who will die young. It will be both scary and also a relief to go. I tend to believe my soul is from elsewhere and dying will take me home.