Have you ever felt that disgusting feeling of emptiness in your chest that made you hate yourself for doing nothing about your life, and at the same time, prevented you from doing anything about it?

If your answer is yes, you probably understand that I was talking about depression.

While you wanted to play games, read books, socialize, go out for a walk, or even breathe, you just couldn’t. And when you started thinking, “Why couldn’t I do this, or why wasn’t I doing that?” You couldn’t find an answer, and it made you feel even worse.

There were no types of depression; there was only ‘depression’.

I lived like this in middle school and high school—the times when we found friends or experienced things like relationships.

I wasn’t always like this.

When I was a child, I had a lot of friends. Both my friends and my teachers liked me. I was that specific sweet and smart kid you could find one or two of in every school.

But things didn’t keep going like that. We bought my pc around that age. I became addicted to video games and eventually became antisocial without even realizing it. My only hobbies other than games were my cheap bass and electric, which I only played at home. I was enjoying most of the time I spent, but with each passing day, I became socially terrible. 

Loneliness hit hard. But let’s not forget an important point here: being alone and feeling alone were completely different things. If you felt lonely, all I could say to you was, “Good luck.”

The strangest thing was that loneliness was actually just a gentle wind pushing the dominoes. It affected your choices, your choices affected your social interactions, your social interactions affected your grades, and your grades affected your life.

And finally, as you grew older, anxiety about the future took over your mind.

I remembered sitting for hours while taking a shower, feeling like I wanted to cry but couldn’t even manage to do that.

I only had four friends before university, and I met one of them while playing video games.

I had a lot of trouble socializing because I couldn’t hold a conversation, and I hated being in groups of more than three people. I hated going to places like bars and cafes. I hated sitting quietly in the corner playing mobile games while people were talking. Games were good though, but you probably understand what I meant.

I was too insecure to be in love with someone, and I became afraid of love when I heard about people’s experiences, such as cheating. I had only been in one relationship, and messed everything up because I was an idiot.

I made so many mistakes in my life, delayed too many things, had so many regrets.

But I didn’t give up. In the last few years, I have started to feel better, thanks to some new friends.

Normally, the only person who cared about you in life was your mother. At least, that’s how it was for me. Other people didn’t care what happened to you, everyone had their own life, and you were naturally not part of it. But for some reason, these people made an effort to make me feel better. They tried to motivate me, and I decided to follow them. Maybe it was the first successful step I had ever taken in my life: making good friends.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

They were the ones who pushed me to adopt a dog. It may sound funny but they were my gym bros, and they were the ones who trained me to become a bartender and forced me to chat with people. The ones who forced me to go on stage even though my breath and hands were shaking. They were the ones who reminded me that I was a human, had feelings, and I could always stand up.

…

But I didn't know if I could stand up right now. My legs were nearly crushed by the truck that hit us, and I watched my friends dying in the burning car. With blood pouring from my head, covering my left eye, I looked around and started to crawl toward the car. When I got closer to it, I saw that the ones in the front seat were already dead.

I tried to stand up, holding onto the car window full of broken glass. Smoke filled my nose. There had been seven of us in the car. I checked the car seats, hoping that maybe someone was alive, but…

Dead.

Dead.  

Dead… 

Lost, I noticed that one of them was not in his seat. I was about to search for him when I heard one of my friends coughing.

As soon as I heard his cough, I tried to move toward him. Using the last strength in my legs, I fell to the ground. I tried to crawl, and when I got close, I realized he was smiling.

“Let’s go!” I shouted at him.

“I can’t.”

He was stuck inside the car; he couldn’t move his body. Even if he could, there was a very high chance that he would injure himself because of the tons of broken glass and crushed parts of the vehicle. I wanted to help him, but I couldn’t even stand up. Then my friend, who I couldn’t see in the car earlier, came limping toward us with a cut on his belly and helped me to stand. Together, we tried to save our friend who was trapped inside. 

After trying several times to get him out of the car, I suddenly lost all strength in my body and fell again. I guess even adrenaline had its limits. I looked at my friends as they screamed my name, and my vision blurred.

We were planning to barbecue on a hill with a beautiful view, but it looked like we were the ones who would be barbecued. I held back my laugh as my friend tried to lift me up.

“Are you going insane?!”

It was funny, why did I have thousands of internet memes running through my head right now? Didn’t people see their lives one last time before they died?

Oh wait… I finished that part a little while ago.

I asked my friend to let me go, and I sat next to the car. I looked at him and then at the one inside and realized that he was also holding back his laugh. I was about to say, “What—” when he suddenly said, “Man, I’m dead.” And that meme became his last words.

I chuckled as I looked at my friend's dead body, then I realized that my other friend was trying to pull me away from the fire.

“You guys are fucking idiots…”

My chuckle slowly turned into giggle. “Man, I’m dead…” I wondered if he had been waiting for this moment for a long time or if it had just come to his mind now.

I continued to giggle silently for a short while as my already blurred vision slowly darkened and left me in complete darkness.

I remembered trying to cry and failing when I felt so terrible. At the time, I didn’t know why I couldn’t, but now I know. I had no right to cry. I could have always tried, started, or done something, but I didn’t.

…

I wished I had spent more time with my mom.

Now I’ve lost everything. I had watched my friends die, and just when things were getting better, I lost my life. At least I didn’t have to worry about my future anymore. 

My laughter slowly turned to tears, and I started crying like a child. I cried for my friends, I cried for my family, I cried for my dog, and I cried for my life, which had been getting better. As a strange feeling took over my whole body, I started to think that I had cried so much my voice was getting thinner. But then I heard the voice of an old woman and experienced the greatest confusion of my life.

“++ boy, me’a lady!

++ ++ boy!”