On Companionship

My best friend/queen Elizabeth and me

This sounds like something from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, I know, but being with good friends is really something special. Throughout my adolescence, the effect of being with friends always confused me. It wasn't a frequent thing, but being with people that are close to me would make me feel excited and joyful. Seems like an obvious thing, but while living with chronic depression, to feel like that is something crazy. 

As an introvert, being alone is great. Unfortunately, being alone is also not the best thing with depression and anxiety. Overthinking runs rampant. You know the feelings that emerge at 3AM after everyone has fallen asleep and the world just seems a little darker? For me and many others, that's what it's like at all hours on a normal day. 

Again, what really threw me was why I felt so normal with other people. It really didn't make sense. It was(/is) incredibly perplexing to feel awful typically, then have moments where things were(/are) unarguably great. Because of this, I felt like an over-dramatic poser, which I definitely was and am not. Just yesterday, after five years of this, I realized why this happened.

Philosopher Alan Watts once said:

"A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So he loses touch with reality, and lives in a world of illusion."

This is crucial. Mental health disorders often involve intense feelings of being trapped. The mind turns into a cage (and a hella strong one at that). You become stuck in the boundaries of your head, lost in thoughts. Reality becomes more and more abstract and everything just feels wrong. Despite going through daily life, things don't really reach you.

My big revelation was that close friends have the ability to pull you out of your thoughts. When you truly engage with people, you're sharing thoughts, energy, ideas, and experiences with them. Friends can sometimes yell over the prolific critic in your thoughts, temporarily breaking bonds. It's a simple idea, but honestly, I hadn't even come close to seeing it. If anyone else has felt confused about why they're okay with friends, there is a reason for it, and it does not invalidate your experiences away from them.