the purge.

Can I just say…and you can consider this my way of grabbing your attention—Depression can kiss my ASS.

I am so sick of feeling this way. A lot of people, mostly people who have never dealt with this, won’t understand. Every time I say I’m going through depression, there is at least one person who asks the question:

“Why?”

I don’t know why. All I know is that there is this—thing—that lives in my thoughts, that is mostly docile. Mostly quiet. But very dark. And the darkness grows sometimes, until the thing is no longer docile, but fierce and cruel. And suddenly every waking moment is consumed with a burning desire to cease to be. Not in an I-want-to-kill myself way…but I want to take everything that is me, everything that is Erin, and change it. I don’t want to look, speak, think, walk, be anything like myself anymore.

The thoughts of unworthiness come rushing in. I start to think I’m not only ugly on the outside, but hideous on the inside. I start questioning why anyone would ever see anything good in me at all. I want to scrape out my insides and start over completely from scratch, because this version of myself has only ever achieved pain and loneliness.

God, I’m lonely. In every way possible. While I don’t speak exclusively of loneliness in the romantic sense—Yeah! I’m lonely in that way! I’m tired of having to pretend that I don’t care about male companionship when I very much do! I miss having someone to hug and kiss whenever I wanted. I miss getting text messages that just say “You’re beautiful” or “I love you.” IT FELT NICE. Being single is not this giant party that people say it’s supposed to be. I will pretend that it is, but I’m so OVER being labeled as the “single” girl. I have friends who actually call me their “single friend!” I’m not going to just jump at any guy who wants to be my boyfriend, but I’m going to be honest…I’m ready for a relationship again.

Cue the “When you stop looking, he’ll come along!” comments. Oi. That’s STUPID. I’m not going to stop looking. I’m not going to stop caring, especially when my dreams are plagued by memories of love so vivid that I can almost actually feel them. I was created to be loved, designed to be cherished, and sweet merciful heavens, I’m GOOD at loving (I mean that in no suggestive way, so all my smart-ass friends can hold your tongues.)! I mean that I am caring, and compassionate, and I try to be understanding, even when an opinion differs completely from my own. I want the absolute best for those that I love, and will do whatever is in my power to make the best happen for them, no questions asked.

Anyway. I didn’t mean for this to be a Single Girl Rant. That’s not what I intended to write. At all. But sometimes……my words just get away from me.

What I really wanted to write about was loneliness, in a broader sense.

The dictionary defines loneliness as: “a depressing feeling of being alone.”

HAHAHA. It’s true! That’s what it is. But there’s more to it than that. Because if you think about the word, “alone,” well…there are so many different levels to it. You can be alone, as in—the only person in a room. No big deal. You can be alone in the sense of being single (which you have already heard about in excess). Or you can be really alone.

I wonder if any of you already know what I’m talking about.

Alone. Being completely without anyone. The kind of alone that doesn’t go away, even when you’re surrounded by your friends, laughing and dancing and doing whatever else. It’s the suffocating kind of alone. Thinking that no one understands you fully. Knows you fully. Loves you fully. Or even cares about you at all.

The kind of alone that makes you crave actual, physical loneliness, because when you’re surrounded by people you feel like an unwelcome outsider, and that’s worse than actually being by yourself in a literal sense.

Sometimes, I feel like God created “extras.” Ones who weren’t really important to him, but sort of helped to fill out the scenery here on Earth. And I feel like one of them.

I know it isn’t true. I know that God created me with love…a love too deep to put adequate words to. I know that he formed me with precision—that he purposefully put every quirk in its place.

I know all this. But it is not easy to connect that knowledge with an actual belief.

Because the place in my mind where I actually believe things…the place where knowledge deepens into understanding and peace…that place is the same place that the Darkness resides. And any time I start to feel too good about myself, the Darkness lifts its head, sniffs the air, tracks down each morsel of joy and devours them whole.

I serve a big God. And he has delivered me from this before. He will deliver me again. I wholeheartedly believe it.

But right now, this sucks.

I can only hope that one day I’ll be stronger for it.

Yeah. I will be stronger for it. And maybe there are others who are going through the same thing, and they’ll see me get stronger and think “I can get stronger, too!” And then their lives will have hope, and my life won’t feel empty and NONE of us—ever—will feel like “extras” again.

It’s so strange…I started writing tonight, and my heart was so heavy. I cried as I began, and continued crying until about halfway through. And then I realized that what I was doing was actually helping. It’s as though typing these words out somehow relieved the pressure in my heart, and I can breathe again.

The more I re-read the words “Yeah. I will be stronger for it,” the more I believe them. Tonight started out looking incredibly bleak…but I think I can go to sleep with a lighter heart, having purged everything like this.

I’m gonna post this now. And let me be perfectly clear—I AM NOT desperate. So take all my single girl rants and raves with a grain of salt. I will not jump at the chance to date just anyone, least of all your second cousin Billy Roy Jim Bob who owns a bait shop in Beaumont. I’m sure he’s very nice, but I’m praying for the right one to come alone, mmkay?

Right One, if you’re reading, stop dilly-dallying around and get on over here.

…….Sometimes, I am irrefutably Texan.

Thank you, and good night.