Breaths of Depression

Sullied Soapbox: Every day, I wrestle with demons. The trick is to not let them win by submission. That in and of itself is an accomplishment; that is a good day. In 1992, I was 7. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past featured heavily on the household SNES as well as on community charts. Having been raised with a regular ground-floor-to-basement routine of burgeoning call-and-response rap, I spent many nights shouting down to my mother (our Nintendo Entertainment System sat in an old entertainment module) to inquire about the evening's meal plans; my closest sister and I quickly learned that our mother's replies of "GRAB WHAT YOU WANT!" entailed peanut butter & honey sandwiches or simple breakfast cereals. Our dining deities were Skippy and Wonder Bread.

My mother needed that respite. For decades, my father had been the sole source of income; my mother had raised us in the belief that none of us would spend a moment in daycare.

Enduring decades of measured consternation and outright disbelief, my father plans for the best but expects the worst. This remains my mental process.

At 7, I was playing ALttP and encountered an unnerving feeling of worthlessness, inadequacy, and anxiety; later, I came to understand that those were tinges of existential dread. Depression first breathed on me that evening. Because of my upbringing, such a negative emotion/experience went unacknowledged, and it wasn’t until I lived in Japan over twenty years later that medication became a necessity.

I continue to grow in efforts to unfuck myself. Genuine and lasting fits of happiness get worn down by self-awareness and overthinking. I sometimes fail to keep the worst of it in check, resulting in me feeling burdensome to anyone who reaches out as my panicked mindset combusts into fractured requests for help across my social circle. This loathsome behavior tests the patience of those truly close to me. The vulnerability of being critically misunderstood gapes at my feet.

But I continue to try.