Freedom

Today I finished my homework reasonably early - at around 4:15 - so I decided to use my freedom here.

I tossed two cameras, two notebooks, and three pens into a bag, grabbed my key, made sure my cell phone wasn't out of battery, and informed my mom I was going to Park Hayarkon, which is a park around the Yarkon, a river that runs through Tel Aviv. "Yarkon" is related to "yarok," or green, since it is said that the water reflects the trees around it. This time of year it looks like watery mud, too dirty to see through but not dense enough to step on. However, I have been going there for as long as I can remember, and the park itself is beautiful.

It felt good to get out. Sometimes I like walking alone more than walking with others - I can linger over things that catch my fancy and walk fast if I like. It lets me notice things. I am a listener and watcher anyway, not as much of a conversationalist generally.

I was planning to sit somewhere and write - there is no shortage of benches - but I ended up just finding pictures to take and enjoying Golden Hour. I walked a little farther than I usually do, going down close to the dirty water and taking photos. The day was crisp, but not cold in the least, and clear - my favorite kind of day. I found a beautifully made wooden bridge - I loved its simplicity - and walked across. The boards were springy and I could hear every one of my steps echoing against the surface of the water.

On the other side of the Yarkon, I visited the fountain, where a few years ago my cousins and I made small boats out of eucalyptus bark. I found a hoopoe, which is the national bird of Israel, and made my way back across the river. I began to run, faster and faster. I am free. It was a clear day and I am not depressed. I am not depressed.

I am free.

Cups of tea: 34

It's Kind of a Funny Story: Book Recommendation!

Today I finished It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini, a book which was actually recommended to me by a friend.

The book is about Craig, a freshman at a very competitive high school, who is depressed. He doesn't exactly know why - all he knows is that it's hard to do anything, hard to get up in the morning, hard to get through school, hard to deal with the pressure, hard to stomach any food at all. His grades are going down and it becomes a cycle. Finally it becomes so hard that he almost tries to kill himself, so he checks himself into a hospital. There he attempts to find recovery, or as he calls it, "The Shift," something he's been trying but unable to do for a long time, even with the help of therapists and psychologists.

This book really spoke to me because I have been through some of it. I got depressed for the same reason as Craig, and although I could always eat and I wasn't suicidal, he thinks the same thoughts as I did and looks at the world the same way. He also has the same thoughts about getting out of it - he knows he has to because if he keeps living like that he'll die. I don't know how reading it would be for someone who was never depressed, but it is a very powerful book.

Cups of tea: 33

My depressed morning

I wake up at quarter of seven. Like I'm supposed to. Except I'm so exhausted I can barely do anything. My dream was something about finding paths, riding in bikes and cars and trying to find a way. It's hazy and cloudy and going-around-in-circles like the rest of the dreams I've had when I'm depressed and exhausted and I know I need to sleep. I stumble to the next room over, my parents' room. As usual, my dad's up already and my mom's still in bed. I crash down onto their futon and toss the covers over me. My mom reaches over and hugs me.

"Do you want to go to school late today?" she asks. I shake my head. If I go, I go on time. "Do you want not to go to school at all?" I think about it for about a second and nod. I close my eyes and stay in my mom's embrace for a few minutes. "Go back to bed," she says. I reluctantly leave the safety of her hug. I need someone to shield me from the world.

I toss and turn, then finally, after a few possible minutes of sleep, I grab the iPad, which has been here since last night. I check my email, Mugglenet, YouTube. I can't shut off the queasy uneasiness that is the familiar depression in my stomach. I reach over, pick up my nook. My friend told me to read It's Kind of a Funny Story so I buy it. I go back to the iPad. Then it's breakfast time. I eat my scrambled egg, a roll with some cottage cheese, some vegetables, and a cup of chocolate milk. My parents tell me we will go outside later today.

After breakfast I return to my room. I read the first two chapters of It's Kind of a Funny Story. It's a book about a suicidal depressed guy. He's worse off than I am, but his thoughts sound too familiar. I press the home button on the nook and toss it aside. Put my head in my hands.

I get on the floor and do twenty situps.

Nothing helps.

If I could talk to my friends now, I wouldn't. Maybe I would text them. But I can't do it when I'm like this. I can't stand knowing they're that far away. And they hate it besides when I text them in such a state. When I do talk to them, it feels okay. But after it I feel awful. I try to write it out in poems, prose, whatever - put it into words - but it doesn't come out right. Besides, no one really likes reading the words of a half-mad depressed person.

It's cloudy out. The sun doesn't even bother.

All the time I'm thinking, there's no way out.

I want to go home, but at the same time I don't. Home is where I first got depressed.

I don't want to do anything.

I want everything to stop.

Stop.

Stop.

---

I wrote that just now. It is a log of this morning. It sort of helps. A bit.

The Missing-itis: Depression, take 2

Well, here we go again.

Lst January I thought I was over it, I really did. But hey-o, I couldn't have been more wrong.

The summer was when it started up again. There were days when I would stay at home and watch YouTube all day. It made me feel trapped again, trapped in my own life. No, I was not and am not going to commit suicide. But I still felt trapped. It was better when I got out and about, but still.

The fall, that is, school, looked really great in September. It was good all through the fall. But all along I was anticipating coming here. And towards November and December it went back. Then I get here and, WHAM. It's here. Full-force. For a while, singing to myself before I went to sleep helped, and sleeping itself always does, of course. But when I start texting and chatting and FaceTime-ing my friends, it comes back. Sometimes they'll say something like, "Oh, ___ and I are doing ___ tomorrow" or "I'm sitting next to ___" and I get this pang, the discontent just bubbling up, mixed with sadness. I cry sometimes before I go to sleep. I find myself crying at YouTube videos that I watched with my friends or ones that I watched a lot during the fall. I text my friends that I hate my life and then look back at our conversations and realize how utterly idiotically horribly irrationally pessimistic I sounded. And then I beat myself up over that. And then at school I put on my happy girl personality. It worked during the first couple of days of school here, but I find myself longing to speak English and be back home. That's another thing that's been bothering me. Right now I have no doubt that America is home. And then I realize that after this I will never again have one home, never again be wholly tied to one place. And then I get sad over that. It just goes on and on and on...and it's too much for one brain to hold.

A lot of writers go mad. No one knows exactly why. But my theory is that a mixture of solitude, perfectionism, self-judgement, and over-understanding brings it about. Writers have to know and understand people more than some in order to write a good story. Or maybe, as they say, you have to turn bad days into good stories. Perhaps writers have an over-abundance of those.

I don't know. At night I often really do hate my life, like a burning black candle that eats away at my sanity. And I hate that in itself.

A friend of mine recently commented that I shouldn't be depressed. It's true, I shouldn't. And that too sometimes makes me feel worse. I resolved to try, but sometimes it's no use. I can't have it all in my head. Which is why I'm writing this blog post.

I can't...

I can't...

I can't...

And I miss home...

I want to go home...

Depression

I don't know if you know this, but I have had depression.
You're thirteen, you might say. What reason would you have to be depressed?
No reason. My life is good. I don't have any problems. Nothing horrible ever happened to me. But like many teens out there, I got depression.
Everyone can be sad sometimes. Being sad is good when it's short. But when it stretches into something that lasts weeks, maybe months, that's when it gets out of hand. That's when it gets horrible. I could put in a whole lot of not-so-polite language as to how horrible it is.
If you haven't had it, depression is undescribable. It's the kind of thing that you can understand but not feel. For me, it was like there was a fist around my chest, squeezing harder and harder. Sometimes I would get queasiness or headaches. It wasn't like I didn't know something was wrong with me. I did, but I felt like no one knew and no one cared.
Which brings me to another point. If you are depressed, you will know what I mean when I say that you feel isolated in your suffering. You feel like you're the only one. And you're afraid to talk about it, because someone might dismiss it as something trivial or make fun of you. But you can't help but want to scream your suffering, let it out somehow. Maybe you think about suicide.
All I want to tell you is you're not alone. And as much of a failure you may think you are now, you're not. I guarantee it. Someone out there does care. Someone does love you. Someone out there will help you get out of it. You don't even have to tell them anything if you don't want to. Just know that you're not alone. And that it isn't permanent.
This is my best effort to help. If you are depressed, you may not believe that stuff up there. But I have been through it. I'm not going to say that if I can get through it, so can you, because that isn't always true. But you don't need to suffer. 
Come out of the dark. When you see light again, you'll find that you missed it.