Getting Better; I'm Scared

Hey,

I'm just wanting to share, I guess. If anybody knows a bit of what I'm feeling, please reply with even just that. I've been depressed my whole life. I'm only in my early twenties. I recently started doing social events more regularly, and my program in uni keeps me in contract with people across more than one class. Before, my happiness used to be contentment. Like, forgetting about the, well, today I don't think I'm going to try putting myself in my most depressed mindset yet again to describe what we've experienced. I don't think I it would be the smartest thing to do right now. It's not sadness I was forgetting. I'm feeling sad now writing this, and that's not what I was trying to forget while depressed.

Now, my happiness isn't just things fading into where I can be for a bit, reading a book. Now, it's something that's becoming integrated into my life. I look forward to seeing certain people. I plan certain things, ways for my day to go. I'm starting to think about the fact that I'll have a future, but I'm giving myself some more time on what that will be specifically because I know I need it. Time where I'm building myself up. This all sounds really positive.

The truth is, I'm terrified. I'm terrified not of any specific thing happening, but of actually feeling. These things don't feel normal to me. I can describe depression with a damn horrible accuracy. I cannot describe what it's like to be happy. That was fine. When being happy was just an off switch to even my depression, that was fine, because being happy wasn't an experience back then. It was an act (i.e. action, not something fake). I didn't need to describe it.

Now though, I can tell that there's something there. I don't like it. I don't like feeling this connected without guilt being the only thing connecting me. I don't like this. Emotions don't match up to the life I have now. I'm still depressed, still to slow to do things, and these emotions contest that so much. So why am I being happy at times? Why can I laugh at comics that I'd scroll through for hours before, being content with. Observing that happiness could happen, but always with depression. Not laughing. Why do I get this feeling now, but not back then when I needed it and why can't it help with the rest of my life. Why does the emotion have to mismatch anything I'm used to. With what some other parts of my life were. Why, now, do I need to process the fact my parents were neglectful instead of just have some diffuse depression. Why does pain have to hurt for happiness to be happy. Why do I have to go back and forth. It scares me, right now. I feel like I want to live, but my life, my depression, have always stopped any specific life. And now it's not, and now I'm going to have a life--my life--and it's scary.

So, that's what I'm sharing. I'm getting better. Now I'm scared. It doesn't make sense. I want to beat myself up over that like usual, and make that feeling go away, but it's not happening. I'm just scared.

Thanks for reading.