Oh, he's so deep

One thing that movies, books and TV seldom show you about depression is how boring it is. The same stupid, negative thoughts go round and round inside your head, over and over and over, and you can't stop it. It's tiring, exhausting, and exasperating too because you know that those stupid, negative thoughts are complete bollocks, just thoughts, not facts, but you can't stop thinking them. You can say to yourself, "Stop it, just stop it. This is nonsense, it's not true. Why am I even thinking these thoughts? I know they are not true," as many times as you like but the same thoughts go on and on in like an infinitely repeating drum loop pounding away in your head. It's like a neighbour playing loud music all night: you shout and pound on the wall to make them turn it down but it goes on all night, every night, keeping you awake.

You begin to imagine your brain as a separate entity, an malicious little goblin that lives in your head who taunts you every hour of the day: "You're rubbish. You're a loser. People think you are weird. Nobody is interested in anything you say. Women don't desire you. Nobody thinks you are cool. They are all having much more fun than you are. They are all getting more sex and they are laughing at you as they do it. You're pathetic." And it's not true, of course it's not true, you know it's not true but the little goblin keeps saying it and saying it and saying it, over and over and over...

It's so wearying and boring and you wish more than anything that the goblin would just shut... the... fuck... up.

You never see that in the media, though. No, you only see the extreme stereotypes: The charismatic manic types, the Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest kind of wild men. Ooh, they are so charming, so edgy, so dangerous and - *giggle* - kinda' sexy; The tormented geniuses who could change the world if only they could conquer their torment and harness their amazing gifts. With time and care and probably the love of a good women they can emerge triumphant. Oh, how moving, how inspirational; The lovable retard. He may not know much but he is pure of heart, gentle of spirit and can show us what's really important in life. He can teach us all to love again!

Fuck that.

That's not most people's experiences. Most people with mental issues simply suffer from plain old mundane impenetrable gloom. It's tiring and frustrating for them because they have to live with the goblin's taunts day in, day out, and it is tiring and frustrating for those who try to help them because no amount of reasoning can assuage the negative thoughts even though everybody involved knows that the goblin lies. All anyone can do is try to find ways to ignore the goblin, distract yourself from his perpetual taunts just enough so that you can function with something approaching normality. However, it is a never ending treatment because no matter what you do the goblin will never completely go away.

No, there's only one way to shut the goblin up for good and that solution is a terminal one.

I'm sure there are many of you out there who view suicide as the coward's way out. Well, fuck you. You have no idea what you are talking about. Go and watch Cuckoo's Nest or A Beautiful Mind or fucking Forest Gump again and bask in the tragic beauty of some romantic image of the tormented mind. Go enjoy your emotional enema and then, once cleansed, fuck off to MacDonald's thinking that you understand something about the mentally ill.

You know nothing. You have never had to confront the mundane everyday reality of what most genuine depressives have to try to deal with. You don't know what it's like to have that goblin droning relentlessly on and on at you all the bloody time, immune to any kind of reason or rational argument. Of course, the goblin talks to us all from time to time, and to some more than others, but is he there all day, every day, refusing to be silenced and giving you not a moment's peace, not for one second? No? Well then, don't pretend to know what it's like and don't you fucking dare call those who can't take it any more and are driven to shut that belligerent little goblin up for good "cowards".

They just want some peace.