I have no idea what it would feel like to not be depressed. Depression is something I have carried with me for as long as I can remember.

All the things people love about me have been shaped by being depressed. As sad as it is to say, I’d be lost without the weight of depression.

It’s just how I was born to be. My dad suffers from anxiety and depression and I take after him in a lot of other ways. This “Hillis Curse” as we call it, isn’t any different.

I know my sisters are the same way. We are all awesome people who have overcome a lot in our lives. I don’t know why we have to carry this burden.

Image by Reimund Bertrams from Pixabay

The funniest people I know are the ones that can’t seem to crawl out of the dark hole of mental illness. We use it to mask our pain and to make light of how we feel. We know life is a joke so we make it into one.

How else can you get through it if you can’t laugh at the absurdity of it all? One of our favorite sayings in my family is,

“Welp, could have done without that!”

Because when you are just sitting there minding your own business, driving on the highway in the middle of Nebraska, and your tire literally falls off, what else can you do but laugh about it?

That actually happened to me. Really could have done without that.

My sister was with me when this happened. My sister is the funniest person I know but I have also seen her on the floor, collapsed in pain from her mind telling her she needs to end it all.

But yet, when the tire went under my car and I got us on the side of the road to safety, all we could do was laugh. And laugh and laugh. Why? That’s not funny. We could have died.

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

But what else CAN you do when shit like that happens? Things that are completely out of your control? What do you do when life just wants to fuck you over?