The Luckiest Girl Alive

The Luckiest Girl Alive

TRIGGER WARNING: Severe depression focus

This pit of despair has no real cause. The tears don’t flow for any good reason. I don’t weep because I have failed at running my business. I’m not in an unhappy living situation or abusive relationship. I don’t have to try to get people to like me. I’m not stupid or uneducated. I want for nothing. 

I’m ashamed because I have everything. I’ve got the right man, a loving family, crowds of kind hearted friends. I have a comfortable home, plenty of food, physical health and an education. EVERYTHING. I got born into the luckiest 1% of the world. But here I am crying day and night. Here I am feeling so hopeless that merely staying alive, staying here in my perfect world, is so hard I have to spend all of my energy not leaving. There are enough pills in my bedside table to knock out an elephant. If I took enough they could end the pain. But this is the worst of it. How dare I contemplate such nonsense. I have everything. What gives me the right to feel this way, when others struggle to eat? When most of the world have so much less than I do. What is my problem? Why can’t I appreciate what I have? I should be blissful, but instead I’m stale, decaying inside my own mind, wasting the beauty in front of me that should, by all rights, be directed toward a worthier recipient. Why don’t the endless outpours of love from people close to me make me feel happy? Why can’t I leave the house? I’m not deformed or disabled. Even though I may feel it sometimes I know that I’m not hideous to behold. So why can’t I leave the house? Why can’t I go to the shops? Why do I keep myself prisoner when there is a whole world out there? Yes, the world is a frightening place. Yes, there is darkness in the world. But there is also light. Why can’t I see it?

Why must I sit shaking at the thought of opening the front door? Why can’t I answer the phone? I have everything. Yet I appreciate nothing. Count your blessings, I often say, but there are so many blessings that to count them would take a lifetime. So why am I sat here in tears again?

It’s me. There is something wrong with me. There is something evil in me. That’s the only logical explanation. Nobody good could even dream of giving this up. This life, so easy it’s unfair. What struggles have I had? Which degree shall I do with my privately educated brain and pile of money that I’ll probably never actually have to pay back? Which beautiful wedding dress shall I wear? How many bottles of bubbly shall we buy for our wedding with 200 friends and family? I am the luckiest girl alive. So why do I cry?

I could be doing something useful by now. With my qualifications, experience and skills, I could be helping other people. But instead I lay on the sofa, or sometimes stay in bed, for days on end staring into nothingness, sobbing for no reason, doing endless hours of breathing exercises and yoga just to try and calm my mind enough to get dressed or prepare food. I’ve built and run a company for god’s sake. And now I can barely make soup. It’s pathetic. I’m pathetic. An ungrateful little wretch. A lazy, good for nothing sponge, leaning on those who love me the most when, if I could just hold it together, I could be helping others. I make myself sick. After everything I’ve had I’m asking for more. I’m asking for help. I’m asking for NHS resources when there are millions of people worse off than me that really need them. I’m a worm. I make myself sick.

%d bloggers like this: