The title of this article is also the title of a beyond-melancholy song by dandelion hands I used to listen to religiously.
Choice lyrics are “avoid your friends for weeks even though/they’re the only sense of consistency you have/left in your life, if they really wanted/to see you they’d come, but they won’t (who cares?)”
For me, this really epitomizes the outlook I had on myself and the world at the time. I was unquestioningly faithful to my depression to the point that it was an intrinsic part of my identity. Every song I loved was tragic, and every philosophy I formed was jaded. One night, I was crying to a friend, and she asked me a question that lives vigorously in my memory to this day, “do you like being sad?”
It shocked me because, curiously, I did not immediately have an answer. No one is happy being sad, but perhaps people are comfortable with it. I certainly was. Though it took me years of work and many a relapse since that friend asked me that, she pointed out to me something I view as the basis of any recovery: a need for the desire to claw your way out of the hole you’ve made your home.
All too often, I see the people around me embrace their self-loathing the way I knew so well. From parading around their lack of sleep, to boasting about how constantly subject they are to abandonment, my peers swim in a sea of self-deprecation. Almost as if it is a mechanism of belonging, I see people one-up their buddies on whose life is worse, contributing to a collective of continuous isolation. People are discouraged from asking for the help they need because admitting they can’t push themselves further than the next guy has become uncool. When everyone on campus expresses their desires to be hit by a car, anyone feeling suicidal might perceive hopelessness as a norm and truly, we’ve made it one. Loving yourself is an elusive prospect not worth working towards when self-hatred is so impressive and edgy, but people should want self-love, whether that means working through mental illness or accepting a part of themselves that they usually repress. Hearing a friend say that they don’t like anything about themselves or that nothing ever is going or ever will go right should be jarring. Students wear their sad playlists and undereye bags like badges of honor, and I wish I could broadcast my friend’s voice around campus like a weather warning, “do you like being sad? Are you comfortable?” If not, do something about it.
