“Depression is like being blind and constantly told how beautiful color is”
As a person living in a black and white world, I am here to tell you why I don’t see it like that. I wouldn’t call depression a blindness to color because that means I’ve never seen it. The problem is that I have seen color; I remember it. It just is no longer there. Way too often I see the world as a colorless obis. It isn’t even black and white anymore--it turns grey. Black and white would imply that my world can be differentiated between large and small things. But the reality is the small things begin to bleed into the big.The world is just shades of grey. The color being leached out, taking all energy and motivation with it.
I don’t fight a war as some call it, because the truth is that I just don’t have the energy. When someone asks if I’m fine, and I am forced to smile and say “Yeah, I’m just tired”, it is not a lie. Lying would be saying ‘I didn’t get enough sleep’ or ‘Yeah I just have a lot of homework’, but the reality is that I got plenty of sleep, and I probably took about an hour to poorly write in some answers to my homework. But that doesn’t change the fact that I am tired. Too tired to hang out tonight, too tired to go to that club I signed up for back in the time of color, too tired to care. My world matching the colored grey of my eyes.
I went through my life seeing the vibrancy of everything from the smallest ladybug to the brightest sky and then my world went dark. It didn’t happen all at once like the lights going out during a storm, it was more gradual than that. I watched the saturation slowly drain from my life. Going from colors to black and white and finally to grey. I didn’t notice the loss of my colors until I no longer had the motivation, the energy to care about it.
My friends slowly became my acquaintances and my acquaintances became someone whose name I couldn’t be bothered to remember. I began to think that they were better off without me anyway. I would just bother them. They’d have left eventually. They’d have realized I really didn’t deserve them.
Then, every once in awhile, there are small periods of color. They may not be bright colors, but they are there. I get excited to go to practice for that sport I’ve begun resenting. I finish the book I started months ago. I call my friends.
As fast as it appears though, the color vanishes.
I go back to pretending that I don’t miss those colors. I go back to not bothering to fight. My energy drains away and takes all of my motivation with it. I don’t admit that there is a problem.
Until the next time the color comes back--this time it’s accompanied by a person. A person who seems to understand. Their eyes a beautiful splash of color. For the first time, I see color as vibrant as the ones I saw as a kid. Such a beautiful contrast to the grays of my new world. No matter how bad or grey the world seemed to get, their eyes still hold a color so bright it’s blinding. And I remember what it’s like to want that color. I remember what color feels like. And for some reason, they see something in me that makes me worth keeping around. I live my life motivated by that color.
Soon, almost without me realizing it, color seeps back into the fabric of my life. One moment I’m laughing--caught up in this person--then the next moment I see the color faintly in everything around me. I look forward to seeing them the next day, no longer for their color, because that’s all around me, but for the love that has grown into that color. And even after that person with the colored eyes leaves I still see my colors. I find people just as colorful. Just as understanding.
Then, I’m drawn to someone new. Their eyes are pale, almost grey, but shine with a passion that can’t be hid. Soon the love that grew for the person with the colorful eyes is overtaken by the love for the person so full of passion. A true friend. I still have colorless days. Days where the color fades away. And somehow the person so full of passion is so gentle when those days come around. One day we take a photo- a harmless photo where I look at the camera and they look into my eyes. And that’s when I see it. Their eyes so full of passion have turned miraculously bright, the passion not forgotten just now so colorful, staring into mine. And mine are just as vibrantly colorful.
