Overcoming the allure of depression

I go through periodic bouts of depression. They are very difficult to get myself to move on from. As anyone who may have depression would understand, all you really want to do is to sink into the couch and stop existing. I don't have motivation to do anything. It isn't that I don't want to do anything it is just that I cannot get my body and my mind to match. Things just don't add up. For some reason, for me these periods of depression feel like everything is wrong, that 2+2= -100. I have two working arms and two working legs and yet somehow I feel like I have nothing.

As bad as all of this is, it has it's own allure. It makes it hard for me to pull myself out of it. I feel more comfortable there. You hate being depressed, but for some reason your brain tricks you into thinking that doing something will somehow be more painful than sitting on the couch all day, living in this guilty self loathing cycle. You think that maybe experiencing life dealing with these everyday things could be worse than the depression. It is an interesting place, where you become comfortable with the pain.

That is the allure. Like that saying goes, better the devil you know, it is easier to just live with the depression. It becomes your friend, it becomes your excuse, it becomes that discussing habit that you try to hide from family and friends, like the addiction you still have to sucking your thumb. You push people away, because you like this depression friend, just like you enjoyed that tub of Ben and Jerry's. It tastes good and you don't really care about what it is doing to you. Who cares you haven't left the house in days or are wearing the same clothes you had on yesterday. Depression doesn't judge.

It takes awhile but eventually my logical brain shouts loud enough at me through the blanket of depression that I can actually hear it again. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Why is is necessary to live through so much pain? What's to say that you won't find something less painful if you go do something? You were happy doing things before, why would it be any different now? I finally remember what it was like to be happy, to do things, to go out and have friends. There is no need for me to be this sad. I must just remember that Depression isn't my friend. All it has done for me is make me sad and hurt. I have real friends that do actually make me feel happy, I used to to things that made me feel accomplished.

I swear to myself that I don't have to be sad ever again, but I know that these feelings will eventually creep back in. So I just need to try to remember that I don't have to be a victim to my own sadness. I can fight and be happy no matter how alluring the call of depression can be.