For anyone wondering, I’m trying to post a nightly update until I’m done with my intensive outpatient therapy, which should be three weeks from now. Tonight’s Lesson: People that suffer from depression often like things that can earn them the feeling of validation in life. My specific hobby is certifications. I like to find free or affordable things to learn how to do in order to continue adding to my skill sets and make myself the best possible asset in any given situation, just so that I can feel valuable if one of those specific skills is in need. I am a licensed amateur radio technician, Advanced Open Water SCUBA diver, sky diver, rock climber, automotive air conditioning repairman, Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, youth ministry chaperone, Firefighter, EMT, HazMat Evidence Collection Technician, and I have more IT industry certifications that I could ever list in this post. In fact, I know there are more certifications that I have that I’m just forgetting at the moment. The good part of this is that I will be able to use a lot of these certifications in order to challenge half of the courses remaining in my bachelor’s degree. The bad part is that I probably only ever did most of this stuff because I couldn’t stand sitting still with my own thoughts. Even with the degree that I am currently pursuing, Public Safety Administration (minor in Psych,) there is a portion of me that wonders whether or not I’m doing it because it could allow me to be hired into a job where I am deployed worldwide for emergency response to disaster scenarios. Talk about an extreme need for validation; I’m currently setting myself up for the ability to place myself in danger worldwide just so that I can feel like my life is worth something. Interestingly enough, I also feel like I’m one of the smartest minds of my generation. One would think that would counteract the need for constant validation, but I’m still working on that. Tonight’s Update: Today was decent, but I feel myself on a decline right now. As long as I’m busy, I don’t focus on the events that have happened recently that have kept me upset. As soon as I stop for even a few minutes, my mind starts to reflect on everything that has happened recently. In the past, this has served me very well. For as long as I can remember, I would fall asleep thinking about what happened during the day. I would lay in bed and reflect on every single aspect while thinking about how I could approach those situations in the future to make it better. I can remember doing this when I was in second grade, so it likely began before that and I can’t remember. Just over a year ago, though, those thoughts changed. I started helping a friend of mine that needed love and protection more than anything. They needed both protection from others and from themselves, and they just wanted to feel like someone in their life cared about them. I would fall asleep every night thinking about how I could provide them with the best possible protection, whether it be helping them overcome PTSD, alcoholism and addiction, or helping to protect them from people in their life that could be of danger, and how to let them know that they are special to their friends even though it might not be expressed often. I stopped focusing on myself for the most part and dedicated the majority of my mental capabilities to helping an individual stay alive. It has, ironically, put me in this situation where I would often rather not be alive myself. I forgot to continue to treat my own depression and mental health, and just like alcoholism or addiction, the lurking monster that is known as depression will sneak up on you when you least expect it and take over your faculties in a way that makes you wish you had true faith in anything in life: friendship, love, maybe religion. I generally consider faith to be something for the weak. It’s for those that don’t want to put the time or energy into figuring out what they truly believe based on scientific reasoning. I have had some very long conversations covering this topic, but the end result is the same. I continue to wonder whether or not God exists, as well as what it matters if so, and I respect the fact that others feel very confident in their beliefs. I often tell my friends that I will always judge them, but I will never hold it against them. “New shorts? That color is the ugliest version of vomit I’ve ever encountered, but you like it, and that’s all that matters!” It would be a lie to say that people don’t notice things that are off about other people, but depression is something that is often hard to notice. Many, many people have reached out to me in the last week to tell me that they know exactly what I am going through. These people are generally beautiful and smart women or very well put together men; they are people that you would not expect to be hurting on the inside. Depression allows you to be a master of manipulation, deflection, diversion, and any other tactic that lets you show others how special they are while you silently suffer in turmoil. I started this by saying that I’m on a decline at the moment. That decline is in part because I’m spending all of my time still focused on this friend of mine that I can no longer help instead of focusing on myself. What I need to remember is that I’m not meant to hold my judgments against anyone. Yes, I judge them for the way that I was left to deal in this situation, but I also forgive them. I hope that one day I can see them again and be as jubilant as my heart desires, because when that day comes, my depression will no longer be in charge of my life.