Living VS Surviving

I look around at people trying to earn a certain amount of money, or get a job that they love, or learn to drive, or get good grades, or run a particular distance in a particular time or write a book or go to painting classes and I feel so incompetent because my goals for so long have been to get out of bed every day, eat, sleep, repeat and try not to think about how I’m surviving rather than living.

I felt like everyone else was focussing on being happy and finding success whilst I was simply focussing on staying awake. You feel so tired all of the time but sleep doesn’t help when it’s waking up that exhausts you and no amount of caffeine helps when you’re tired of life.

I feel like the goal of life is to find happiness and that is why depression feels like a complete kick in the teeth. It’s like you’re put into a race when it’s already determined that you cannot win. How can you run when you know that you will never even find the finish line? How can you live when the very purpose of your existence seems unattainable?

So, we don’t live. At least not in the beginning. Instead, we struggle to survive because we refuse to believe that we would be put into such an impossible competition. We don’t hope to win but we refuse to not try because what’s the alternative?

“No matter how often I think I can’t stand it anymore, I always do. There is no alternative. I don’t fall, I don’t foam at the mouth, faint, collapse or die. It’s the same for all of us. You can’t get out of the inside of your own head. Something keeps you going. Something always does.”
– Janice Galloway, The Trick is to Keep Breathing

We see others winning their own game, and sure, everyone has their hurdles to jump over but at least they can see the finish line, they know that happiness is possible. But with depression, you could have the clearest and easiest pathway but it doesn’t matter when you can’t find a reason to run.

With depression, it often feels like the finish line was never there to begin with, and we’re just wandering, or surviving because the alternative is death. That may seem dramatic but it’s the truth. And even if our own death doesn’t deter us from dropping out of the race, being the very thing that prevents our loved ones from winning their race does.  

But sometimes we think that losing will help our loved ones to win.
But that’s not true.

But that also shouldn’t be your only reason for running because if you only run for other people you will never see the finish line. If you stay alive for other people you will never truly live. In order to have a chance of living you need to survive first. But to really be happy you need to do it for yourself and nobody else.

Surviving focuses on denying death.
Living focuses on embracing life to the fullest.

With depression, surviving is a daily battle and when your existence is fuelled by a back-and-forth inner dialogue which is constantly questioning whether life is worth living you don’t even realise the real problem – that you aren’t really living. It’s not that your life doesn’t seem worth it, it’s your current existence or survival that you are questioning.

You think, “Is this it? Because if this is what the next 50 years are going to be comprised of then I might as well save myself a lot of time and suffering and end it now.” But this isn’t it! You wouldn’t be ending your life, you would be ending your survival and your prospect of living.

Instead, end your attempt at trying to survive alone and seek some help at living. I know it’s difficult and uncertain and terrifying, but is it worse than the pain you’re feeling now? Is it worse than the prospect of existing in a state of prolonged suffering and survival? Is it worse than ending it all?

“I’m caught between trying to live my life, and trying to run from it.”
— Stephen Chbosky: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

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