Two.

“Sometimes, the easy option is the best option.”

I was reading some of my old journals, and came across an entry that I wanted to dissect.

They say that, when you are experiencing depression, you should maintain some kind of lifestyle. To meet your basic needs, as this will help improve your mental state. Get out of bed. Shower. Eat well. Exercise. Drink water. See people. Sleep the right amount – not too much, not too little. Routine.

When you’re depressed, the little commonplace sorts of tasks can become the most difficult, strenuous, draining tasks in the world. In depression, so much more energy seems to be exerted to just go about daily life.

I’m going to go right ahead and label the “simple” things as the hard option.

And you know what? Most of the time, people with depression take the hard option. They get out of bed and go about their tasks because that is what they’ve been told they should do (and is in fact what stigma has led to society to expect for them to do – because depression is not a real illness and we should just “suck it up”). So many people with depression continue about their lives, keep going to work and keep up a façade that they’re all tightly held together.

If I had a broken leg, the hard option would be to just use my leg and keep walking, right? But I wouldn’t do that, because I’d make the break worse. The injury would take longer to heal, and most likely would not heal properly. My leg would certainly never be the same again.

Well, I’m going to say that it’s the same with depression. Yes, people with depression can physically continue with their lives.

But let’s pretend for a minute that depression is a bone in my body. Each day I keep going to work; keep seeing people, taking care of my everyday tasks. And each day, my “depression bone” breaks worse than before. It’s taking longer to heal. And it’s never going to be the same again.

The alternative?

Well, that would be the easy option.

Nowadays, “mental health days” are a term of speech, connoted with negative implications of laziness, of “faking sick” to get a day off, of being slack etc. In reality, “mental health days” are the easy option people with depression, on occasion, NEED. We need a day where no, we aren’t getting out of bed. Yes, we are watching crappy TV shows all day. No, we’re not showering. Yes, we’re eating junk. No, we’re not going for a walk. Hell, we’re not even going outside. If the food was in our bedroom, we wouldn’t leave. We need that day (or longer) where yes, we get to hide from the world and just simply let ourselves not be okay. We’re not held together. And maybe hiding under a blanket in the dark and popping a couple of valium is the answer in that moment, because there is such a high likelihood that any alternative will mean that there is no next moment.

Sometimes, the easy option can be the difference between a bandaid or stitches; doctor or hospital; hospital or morgue. The easy option is there so that we are allowed to offer ourselves limitations. To acknowledge our current state and give ourselves a rest, even if just for a day. And in taking that easy option, in turn, we are given one less break in our “depression bone”.

So yeah. Sometimes if I’m depressed, I am going to stay in bed all day. Because I have limitations as to how much reality I can face on that day; in that moment.

Maybe it’s weak.

It’s the easy option.

But sometimes, the easy option is there, keeping someone alive.

Sometimes, the easy option is the best option.