Grieving Woe

Aug. 30. 2025

There’s a peculiar grief that comes with healing, which most people wouldn’t understand. It’s an odd experience, the unexpected ache of missing something that nearly destroyed you. The depression that once felt like drowning now seems, in its absence, like it was also a kind of shelter. It wrapped around me with the certainty of gravity, predictable in its weight, familiar in its darkness. I knew exactly where I stood in that grey landscape. During that time I was nowhere but, at least it was in a nowhere I understood. The world feels bright now, too full of possibilities that require decisions, energy, others faith and hope. All these things that feel foreign after so long in the cocoon of numbness I grew so fond of. I often find myself nostalgic for the simplicity of having no expectations, for the permission sadness gives me to disappear, to need nothing from anyone, to exist in the margins of my own life. Recovery asks me to show up, to engage, to believe in tomorrow, and sometimes the sheer effort of it makes me homesick for the place where nothing was required of me except survival. It’s a strange betrayal of my own progress – this longing for the very thing I fought so hard to escape. Yet, perhaps it’s also proof of how thoroughly that darkness became home, and how terrifying it can be to learn to live in the light again.

I wish I understood it. How could I miss something that took so much of my life from me? The hours I spent in my room, hiding under my weighted blanket as the work load piled into mountains I didn’t attempt to climb. On my dresser, a flash of light from my phone screen. Messages from my friends, begging me to come outside for a breath of fresh air. “It’s been ages since we last saw you” they’d say. Though to me, time went slow. Time wasn’t a concept I dared to understand. Why would time matter to me? 

Depression has this strange, twisted comfort to it, like sinking into quicksand that feels warm at first. When the weight of it settles over you, there’s an odd relief in the complete absence of pressure to be anything, do anything, become anything. The expectations that once felt crushing simply evaporate because I can barely manage to exist, let alone excel. There’s a perverse freedom in having no energy to plan beyond the next few hours, no capacity to worry about tomorrow’s responsibilities or next year’s goals. I can lie there with that familiar hollowness carved out beneath my ribs, that aching void where motivation used to live, and for once nobody expects me to fill it. The bed becomes both prison and sanctuary, a place where the outside world’s demands can’t quite reach me, where the only requirement is breathing, and even that feels like an accomplishment some days. It’s a dangerous kind of comfort, this surrender to numbness, because it whispers that this is easier than trying, that this emptiness is somehow safer than hope.

Recovery crept in slowly, like dawn breaking after the longest night, and suddenly the world blazed with possibilities that felt almost overwhelming in their brightness. Colors seemed more vivid, conversations carried weight and meaning again, and that hollow space in my chest began to fill with something that felt dangerously like hope. Life rushed back in. A loving boyfriend who sees me, who’s patient,, school that challenges my mind in ways I’d  forgotten were possible, job opportunities that make my heart race with excitement rather than dread. But here’s the strange, guilty truth nobody talks about. Sometime]\1` you catch yourself missing the simplicity of that darkness. There was something uncomplicated about depression’s low expectations, the way it asked nothing of me except survival. Now, with all this brightness, comes the terrifying responsibility of living up to it all. The thought of being worthy of love, of succeeding in school, of not disappointing people who believe in me. The depression was familiar, predictable in its emptiness, while this new life pulses with unpredictable joy and crushing pressure in equal measure. I find myself almost nostalgic for the days when getting out of bed was the only goal, when no one expected me to shine, when the world was muted enough that I couldn’t see how far I might fall.

There’s something achingly familiar about the shadows.  Even as happiness fills the spaces depression carved out, part of me yearns for that old invisibility cloak. The way sadness made me transparent to the world’s demands and expectations. When I was miserable, I was hidden, untouchable, exempt from the exhausting performance of being okay. Now that I’m genuinely happy, genuinely thriving, there’s this uncomfortable spotlight that follows me everywhere. People notice my progress, celebrate my wins, expect me to keep glowing, and sometimes the weight of their attention feels heavier than the depression ever did. The misery was private, mine alone to carry, but happiness feels so exposed. Like standing naked in a room full of people who are all waiting to see what I’ll do next. There’s guilt in missing the darkness when I know how hard I fought to escape it, but the truth is that sadness was a perfect hiding place. It gave me  permission to disappear, to make myself small, to exist without the terrifying vulnerability that comes with letting people see me succeed, see me loved, see me whole. Being happy means being seen, and being seen means risking everything I’ve rebuilt. And sometimes, in the quiet moments between joy and fear, the old shadows whisper that they’re still there, still waiting, still offering that familiar refuge of nothingness.

The pull will always be there. Like a tide that never quite recedes, just waits at the edges of my consciousness, whispering about how easy it would be to slip back into that familiar darkness. But then I remember that some things deserve to be lost, even when I grieve them like old lovers and friends. The depression that once cradled me in its empty arms also stole years from me, dimmed every light that tried to reach me, convinced me that smallness guaranteed safety. It’s okay to miss it sometimes, to feel that strange homesickness for my own suffering, because it was mine, it was known, it was the devil I lived with for so long that it felt like home. But I keep choosing the harder path. All the therapy sessions where I peel back layers of myself, the medications that rewire the chemistry of my thoughts, the terrifying act of letting people love me when every instinct screams to hide. I keep waking up not because it’s easy, but because I know now that some losses are actually victories in disguise. And when I help others do the same, when I extend my hand into their darkness, I’m not just saving them. I’m proving to myself that the light I’ve found is real, is worth protecting, is worth choosing again and again, even when the shadows call my name.