The Closet Facade

People see me throughout the day when I go to school. I'm pretty much everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It's funny because when people see me, I'm smiling like an pansy, asking people how their day is going, and telling people "I'm fine," or that "I'm doing well, thank you," or some other happy-go-lucky response that makes people think that I'm actually okay.

These people really know nothing.

When I'm home in the confines of my room, sometimes I just sit and stare. Sure, there's plenty of things I could be doing: I could be doing homework, which is definitely a priority because I'm in college, and that whole "My dog ate my homework" excuse isn't valid. I could be watching TV, even though majority of the shows that are on TV nowadays are complete and utter garbage. I could be working on music stuff, like songwriting, or covers that I do on occasion. But I don't do any of these things. I just stare into space, as if the walls in my room will eventually generate the motivation I need to get anything done.

That's not the case, is it? 

Nope.

It really sucks...I mean, I have so many things that I'm good at, and yet I sit and stare without the drive to do any of them. I wasn't always like this. In fact, I remember a time when I actually gave a damn about things...in elementary school, I did my homework on time, I played with my friends during recess. When I would go home, I would study and then play video games with my brother. I remember the general idea of contentment. 

And yet somehow, it has eluded me. Somewhere between my adolescent days and now, something happened, and something killed my ambition. And to this day, I can't figure out what it is. 

Because of this, I am a liar. I lie to everyone every single day of my life, coming in to school or work, smiling, making everyone think that everything is okay. 

I'm not okay.

I want people to know I'm not okay, but I don't know how to tell people, "Hey...I'm really not okay." "Everything is going wrong." "I'm not happy." "All I want to do is cry."

Easier said than done.

So, here I sit, at school, telling jokes and making people smile, when all I want is someone to do the same for me. 

Making my own happiness is a lot harder than it should be.

Pray for me.

-T

Intro to Hiding

Who names a blog "The Closet Depressed?" 

Seriously?

Well, I do.

What exactly does that mean? To be honest, I have no idea. When I think of the idea of a "closet," I think of the place I used to hide when my parents used to fight. I moved a lot, so I've been exposed to several types of closets. My favorite closet was in the Poconos in our first actual house. When I used to be organized, my clothes used to hang nicely on the rack, organized from sweaters to shirts, jeans to regular pants. The floor of the closet had a couple of my shoes, but there was still enough room to go inside, pull my legs into my chest, and cover my ears while my parents screamed until their vocal chords temporarily broke.

So, back to the title of this blog, "The Closet Depressed..." yeah, it definitely is quite on the dark side. What led me to this? Truthfully, I am a person who was diagnosed with depression when I was 19, which a lot of people don't know about me. The bouts my parents had with one another wasn't the only thing to drive me to this point, but it could have definitely prevented it. Depression isn't just some made-up disorder so people have an excuse to be sad and upset all the time. It's a serious ailment, and I only know it because I live with it daily. What's worse is that since I have no kind of medical insurance, I have no medication to keep me balanced, (which I probably don't need, but who knows how far gone I really am since it's been almost 9 years since my initial diagnosis). 

SO, you're probably wondering why I'm even attempting to write this blog. Well, there's quite a few reasons: Raise awareness, talk about how it affects others I know who have it, etc. My main reason is to understand myself better. 

See, sometimes when I write, I tend to word vomit, which is a nice way of saying that I write a million ideas on a piece of work, and it's incoherent, and sounds sloppy and I sound insane, but upon reading back what I've written, I start to get a better idea of what I'm trying to convey. This blog is my attempt to discover what makes me the way that I am, and to fix it before it makes me worse.

So, is it safe for me to come out of my depressed closet now?

God, I hope so.

Thanks for reading.

-T