Thank you depression, emptiness, and loneliness
These are the bitter monsters who became bosom friends
Experiencing depression, emptiness, and loneliness
CW: Depression, suicidal ideation
This time last year was one of the hardest times in my life. I had just quit the job that I had always dreamed of —data scientist in a tech company in the Philippines, but it had pushed my mental health towards a breaking point. I was in the motherland, the Philippines, yet 7000 miles from home. I was a stranger in a country foreign to me yet strangely familiar. My return date was December 17, 2018. I had three weeks left to live the life in the Philippines that I wanted. But I could not.
Though I was surrounded by a loving family, no one knew how to call out what I was experiencing —major depression. They reached their hands towards me, in ways they could: small gestures to come with them on errands, warm cooked meals of high-fat, high-carb, high-sugar foods, invitations to family outings to Baguio, Bataan, Vigan, but despite best intentions, none of that mattered to me then. Even the Philippines Christmas season couldn’t lift my spirits. I couldn’t even believe that I was depressed. I didn’t allow myself to call it depression. I had beat depression the year prior in 2017, and I wasn’t about to let my ego deflate by admitting powerlessness to an even worse depression.
But depressed I certainly was.
I was completely numb to anything. Waking up was easy, but getting out of bed was trying to budge an immovable boulder, and I was a tiny ant. It did not matter where I were or who I was surrounded with, I was perpetually sad and tired. Weekends in the province of Bataan, I spent locked in an air-conditioned room, on the mattress. People would come and go and look at me with sad pity, or ignore that I was empty. My eyes were perpetually baggy and lifeless, my soul perceived only if you could catch my glance and look deep beyond the glassy stare before I looked away out of embarrassment. I was not “fun, jovial, happy-go-lucky” Kevin I thought was expected of me. Feigned laughs and half-hearted assurances that I was ok was enough to quell people’s interest in me.
2019, you brought me to confront my profound emptiness.
The emptiness of depression is difficult to describe: it is as if nothing in the world would make me happy again. It is like sinking slowly into a deep, dark, slippery black hole. The insignificant distractions of pleasures, goals, and dreams made me fall asleep to the state of my body, until suddenly, I awaken in a black chasm, a small light at the surface barely perceivable at the top, completely out of reach. The worst part is I didn’t know why or how I got there. Depression was pieces of a puzzle I could not arrange. Fighting depression is like scrambling to the top but being weighted down by my expectations, pride, the inner saboteur, and inner demons. The harder I would flail towards the light, the deeper I was dragged into depression. I didn’t realize at the time that only slow, methodical steps could help me resurface.
It felt easier to give up.
Happiness, joy, laughter, and energy were concepts that were as foreign to me living authentically in the Philippines. Simple pleasures had no meaning. Food would be bland, going out a mindless distraction. I was a shell of my former self. I’d resurface in short flashes, when friends and family would coax a genuine smile or laugh, but I was quick to revert to my saddened self.
Death would be sweeter than the life I was living.
I often thought and prayed for God to end it there. That it would be better for me to die in a tragic accident than to go back home and face the idea that I had failed: I had gone to the Philippines to live my adult dreams, become a working, independent professional or a star Filipino American chef. But by the end of my 6 months in the Philippines, I had none of that. I had nothing to go back to —no job, no friends, no future, no partner, no connections, no chance... or so I thought.
I’d spend my days eyes locked on my phone, scrolling through twitter and instagram, yet I felt no deeper connection to others. It was just fodder feeding my inner saboteur. I would envy the growing successes and triumphs of people who decided to get a full-time job in the U.S. and curse them in my mind. I didn’t want them to succeed. I wanted them to fail as hard as I did. I wanted to bring them back to my level, because I felt I couldn’t bring myself up. It wasn’t fair that I had made the wrong choices. I wanted my last 1.5 years of graduating back. My hatred of their progress was really hate towards myself. I didn’t realize I was cursing myself really in the black mirror of my phone, because my reflection was hidden with the illuminated social media posts of others.
At least in death it would be over, I thought.
But I didn’t have the courage to end my own life. It was easier to scroll through mindless posts, watch mindless videos, distract myself with another sweet food to eat than experience my own emptiness. Experiencing emptiness would mean being completely by myself and acknowledging every feeling of sadness, failure, and regret I had bottled up. Being by myself would mean experiencing everything that I was, but that would be to painful. So I chose distractions. I chose to sink deeper. I chose to bottle as much as I could.
And then, 2019 happened.
When I got back from the Philippines in 2019 it brought transformation. At some point in my depression, I reached my rock bottom. When they say rock bottom, it really does feel like the bottom, but at the bedrock, you can’t sink any further. Moving back into another new environment was the foundation for me to start climbing up. Beginning 2019, I was depressed that I hadn’t achieved the type of work to rival that of my peers. That eventually went away.
It took me time to realize that the work I needed was not a full-time job, six-figure salary, benefits and a 401K (don’t get me wrong, those are great things). But I needed to do the most sacred work there is in life: work on myself. And I began, and I started the upward climb outside of the hole. Progress was slow, painful, and hard. It is like looking at myself with all my vulnerabilities and insecurities intertwined with my most vital organs: my heart, brain, and soul. It looks like dissecting my true self from the ideas of self built from life’s trauma. It feels like ripping away parts of myself that I eventually realized were never me but projections to deal with my own trauma.
It sucks as much as it is humbling.
But ultimately, it is this holy work that is the most beautiful and important work there is. The value created in knowing and loving every part of myself and deconstructing the patterns that kept me weighed down is something money can never buy.
I continue my holy work everyday: it is something I will never sacrifice for someone else, something else, whether monetary or material. Now I’m no longer climbing out of a hole but I’m trekking upon mountains —the sun shining brightly, illuminating all forms of possibility. I know it will get dark sometimes, but now I welcome the dark emptiness, a bosom friend, because it is in that sole emptiness that I get to experience myself more deeply, intimately, and completely.
Despite life being perpetual waves of pain, dissapointments, and frustrations, I no longer wish for a quick death. If it’s my time, then it is my time; I’ve surrendered to the greater will of the Universe/God. But while I am here, I have work to do, people to love, experiences to embrace (both good and bad). Most importantly, I have myself to love, cherish, and celebrate. I deserve nothing less than to be present in my unique, unbelievable, and wild experience. I’m not afraid to die anymore, and now I am no longer afraid to live.
Thank you, 2019 for dragging me deep through the waters of emptiness, loneliness, and depression, because now I savor every breathe of air that reminds me that I am alive. In the solitude I’ve found life’s purpose, and the most humbling gratitude for being able to experience fully every single thing life has to offer. You’ve given me the gift of presence. I’ll honor it with every minute and every breathe.
Love,
Kevin
What demons have you overcome this year. Hit the gratitude button and share me your thoughts!
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