Musings on Growing up with Depression

tw:suicide, selfharm, suicidal ideatation

i often wonder how growing up with depression impacted my childhood. did it affect me the same way growing up without an arm or leg would? did i just imagine my depression and believe my imagination that I've permanently damaged how i view reality? i don't know. not knowing if youve been tricking and lying to everyone, including yourself, is scary, confusing, and hard to figure out. do my emotions feel different to "normal" people's emotions? is what i consider happiness what they consider sadness simply because i know no different? is what i consider "resilience" what other people numbness and apathy? has growing up with depression changed and broken me in ways that can never be fixed? was/is my selfharm attention seeking? was my suicidal ideatation and near attempt? has depression "deleted" memories from entire periods of my life, and erased my emotions?

i don't know. i'll never know because my normal isn't everyone's normal. i don't know because i can't remember any different. i'll never know because i was too young to know to get help and now it's too late, far too late, to undo any damage done. what's done is done and all that. i don't know what i want do to with my life because i never imagined getting past 16 and now i'm 17. i never saw myself college, getting a job, and having a life of fulfilment and a chance of happiness. i should have gotten a job this summer, i'm going to college in atleast two years, i have a future and i don't know what to do with that fact.

depression; it broke me again and again and again. it stole my ability to see a future. it stole my ability to feel, to remember, to live life fully. my happiest days have had a dark cloud over them. my darkest days, my soul destroying emptiness and numbness are "normal"; i don't balk at them but yet i still refuse to embrace them.

i don't know if this made much sense. maybe it did, maybe it didn't.