In defense of my illness

I am mentally ill.

Late in 2015, I was diagnosed with major depression. But I’m not here to talk about its symptoms, how doctors know one has it, how it is treated, or if patients get well at all. There’s Google for all of that. I’m not even here to talk about how I broke the news to my family, my friends, and superiors at work, or what their awkward reactions were like.

I’m here because I want to talk about my depression in the most—no matter how ironic—uplifting way possible.

By going through an episode of major depression (probably my first of many, which is of course a terrifying thought to me), I have changed in many ways. The obvious ones are that I’m no longer religious (probably demon-possessed to some, of course); I’m a lot more introspective, and I no longer see the world as a perfect place full of things to conquer and achieve.

I acknowledge that these changes must be tempered so that I can be a well-adjusted mentally ill person, who never gets another shot in a major corporation. For example, while now a resentful agnostic, I must learn to still have respect for the faithful. While I have become more imaginative (and, if you will, creative, though I generally hate overused words like that), I must also learn to put my wild ideas into action. And while the world is not perfect and one can never be the most awesome person in it (and even if one becomes awesome, one will at some point make terrible mistakes and the world will hate one for it), there is still a lot of beauty, love and cause to live for.

But there is one change I am very happy with, which I believe has made me a way better, self-aware ape: my newfound abundance of empathy.

Before I fell into depression, I was obsessed with being always right, and being the best in what I do at all times. I was a go-getter. I didn’t quite relate well with others, specially those whom I regarded as “average” or “mediocre.”

I didn’t know pain or humiliation. Heck, I may have even caused pain and humiliation to others without knowing it, and assumed that I was excused because I only had the best in mind: We had a paper to submit, a proposal that’s due, a project to deliver, so to hell with all your emotions. I will be a bitch because I have to.

But by falling into a major depression, I knew what pain was for the first time. It’s all technically in one’s head, surprisingly irrational, but it’s real. One can’t just shake it off and get better. For the first time, I hated myself, hated how I looked, hated how I dressed, hated how awkward I was. I hated how I was “too smart” for the guys, hated how I couldn’t connect with anyone in the office, hated how I’d never enter grad school because my well-paying job was so demanding and I couldn’t quit it because I’m helping my parents pay their debts.

I hated my life for having to choose between success and happiness, which I had always assumed to be things that went together.

For the first time, I was not in control.

And then I understood why some people cry on their pillow at night, why seemingly happy people attempt suicide, how intelligent people can be irrational and make bad decisions, why they can’t just “sleep it over” and “move on.” Because I’m one of them. And by being aware of what I need the most in my darkest moments, I also learned what people like them need when they are suffering. It’s not another piece of advice, not “sleeping it over.” It’s not a Bible verse or a laying of hands because an evil spirit is tormenting them as a consequence of their ungodliness.

It’s just another human being. Someone who’ll just listen, and try not to “understand how you feel,” but suffer with you at the moment so you’ll know you are not alone. Someone who’ll agree that this is a crazy, f-cked up world we live in, and we can only do so much to not get f-cked up by it. And after all that, see the suffering not as a sign of weakness but as a glimpse of courage, for making sense of the world as it really is, no matter how depressing.

For the first time, I learned empathy. And that, I believe, is how being mentally ill forged me into a better human being.

Jeleen Clavecilla, 24, of Parañaque City, is a freelance writer.