Depression 2.0
There’s a kind of depression nobody ever talks about: I’ll call it Depression 2.0.
You choose 2.0 because Depression 1.0 was too intolerable. Its ash was too dry and its suicidal ideation, too violent. Its relationships were too demanding, and the continuous struggle to rise was too exhausting.
And so you defer to Depression 2.0. You choose all the same things you did in the previous incarnation of the disease. You’re just non-committal about them. Instead of attempting suicide, you don’t treat your disease. You know you’re due for a checkup, but maybe negligence will bring you the ending you’re too terrified to achieve on your own. You choose detachment over blades, nooses, and poisons. You disengage.
People will take a few years to stop fighting for your friendship, but they’ll get there eventually.
When they do, you will be alone, and nobody will be any wiser about it. You’re not depressed. You’re chronically unavailable. There are ways to convince people of this. They think you’ve made new friends and built a new life, but you’re really just finding ways to pass the time. Maybe you take up knitting. Or volunteer at a DV shelter. Or help at a soup kitchen. These pastimes do not require commitment or intimacy of you, so Depression 2.0 is highly effective. When you’re not handing out lunches for the homeless, you’re knitting a jersey you will never finish. You’ll add it to your growing pile of incomplete creations because Depression 2.0 doesn’t care about the end product, only the time it evacuates along the way.
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Depression 2.0 has learned to achieve the illusion of sociability. It says “hi” to people occasionally, but it never, ever commits to a visit. You are The Walking Dead, and zombies don’t socialise. They’re half dead already.
Depression 2.0 might have the energy to work, but it will never turn it into a career. That, too, requires you to connect with life. Depression 2.0 is separatist and disinterested. All goals have been relegated to the past, so you pore over incomplete books and unfinished projects. Stimming is an excellent way to pass time without commitment.
Depression 2.0 is a liar. It will never admit to its own existence, especially its suicidality. If you’ve graduated to this version of the disease, you have learned how to be numb. Sylvia Plath said, “I may be skin and bone. Nevertheless, I am the same identical woman.” And you are, somewhat, but something is missing. Maybe you can define it, but Depression 2.0 doesn’t care. It “rocks shut as a seashell.”
There is no touching, no connecting, no authentic commitment. You have achieved absolute invisibility by hiding in plain sight. You do not rise out of the ash like Plath. You bury yourself in it. You wait for the days to count down to weeks and for the weeks to count down to months. You wonder what will get you in the end, but you’re not even willing to engage with that. You are a ghost everybody thinks is real. When you die, nobody will know it was on purpose.
We’re not supposed to talk about such things. It makes others feel uncomfortable, but this is why you left Depression 1.0 in the first place. It made others uncomfortable, so you vanish instead. Your words collect in your throat. Your dreams fall behind you like abandoned footprints. It’s over. It’s just that nobody knows it yet.
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