If I die of depression, read this post

There's a comedian I watched during residential that was someone talking about depression and meds and such.

There was a funny bit in there about how "people are so worried about the side effects of psychiatric medication"

"When I'm more worried about the side effects of depression, namely death."

I thought that was funny, but the next line was what really stuck with me.

"We really shouldn't be calling it suicide, we should be calling it dying of depression"

. . .

If I die of depression

If I die of depression, know that it was a fight.

From the first day I developed OCD symptoms as a child.

From the first time I felt depressed in high school.

From when I first felt dysphoria.

From when I first got nightmares and other cPTSD trauma responses.

It was a fight.

I would have fought as hard as I could have.

As hard as humanly possible.

But if I lose, then know that it was just too much for a person to handle.

You know

You know that I am strong.

Terra is strong. Lily is extraordinarly strong.

So if I lose, know that it was an honorable fight and that I tried my best.

If I don't make it, then it was not for a lack of effort.

It was the honorable defeat of one of the strongest people you know.

. . .

This is true of everyone who dies of depression

Everyone who dies of depression fought a long and hard fight.

You don't blame someone who dies of lung cancer of "not fighting hard enough".

Yet somehow there's this opinion of deaths by depresison that they were being selfish.

That they should have just tried harder.

But know that everyone who dies of depression tries their fucking hardest.

No one willingly dies.

Yet those who die of depression are blamed for their own death.

And that's stupid and pisses me off.

We don't "commit suicide". We don't "give up". What we did was not "selfish".

We died of depression.

If I die

If I die of depression, know that it was a fight.

That I pushed harder than you could possibly imagine.

For years, for decades.

Through excruciating pain.

Through experiences I can barely explain to you.

You can't understand what it's like to suffer so bad that death seems like the correct action.

If someone dives out of a burning building, that's not suicide.

But if I dive out of a building to free myself from my thoughts, that's somehow something different.

If I die, treat it as me jumping out of a burning building.

A desperate action to free myself from the pain that I experience.

Constantly. Perpetually.

If I die of depression, read this post

I did not "commit suicide"

I died of OCD and Bipolar disorder and depression and anxiety and dysphoria and cPTSD

. . .

Anyway that was a depressing post, but one I had to make.

I'm doing fine. Don't worry about me.

I just had to get this idea out into the world. To set the record straight in case I don't make it.

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