Crippling depression

Sometimes I just need to escape into complete solitude. Normal, living human beings spur inside me a jealousy and a sadness I simply cannot bear. I uncontrollably break out into tears. I am not exaggerating.

Mid conversation, I get up and leave for apparently no reason.
"Where are you going?" My roommate asks.
"Somewhere else," is all I can reply with the faintest hint of sobbing in my voice. My acting skills have become rusty.

What causes it? Is it the ease with which other people are able to simply be that I cannot grasp? Is it the utter regret that my entire life spurs into existence? Or is it nothing at all that causes the teardrops falling like rain onto my iPad screen as I sit alone in the bathroom? One may never know.

The same roommate spoke to me as we were buying tampons, milk, and other necessities at the store. She said, "I wish there were more people like you in the world. Just helpful for no reason." To which I could only reply, "I don't... To have a person like me, you have to have the events that forged me and I would not wish those or any similar events on any soul, no matter what good came of it-- to do so would be sadistic to the point of damnation."

The most tangible silence of my life followed those words.

I'd like to hope that I am being over dramatic, but when I realize that I am sitting in my bathroom because I am quite literally unable to stop the tears streaming down my face, when my roommate comes in to try to cheer me up and I have to send her away because her presence is making me claustrophobic to the point of hyperventilating tears, ... I realize that I am not. The pain that makes me who I am ... is fucking awful.

As a suicide prevention moderator, I have been able to help others back from that most precarious edge, but not without its own share of risks. The other night, I dealt with a young girl with much pain and a knife to relieve it. I have moderated hundreds of crises with no problem, but her situation awoke in me something that I had thought was long behind me. I became paralyzed with something I could not explain. I couldn't help her. I knew what to say, but I also knew she would not listen. The only advice I could give would go unheard and I knew it. Everything felt futile and lost. I was returned to the place with no hope. I called for help and was assisted by a superhero named Remus. He helped me resolve her struggles for the evening, but my wounds were open again. I cried myself to sleep that night, unable to control the volume of my sobs. Again I was saved by a loving friend's comforting arms.

Given a poll of random persons who have interacted with me, I think the consensus would be that the world would be a worse place without me and what pain I must have experienced is worth it for what I have become and the good I bring on a daily basis. However, in the deepest, blackest portion of my existence, I honestly think that they are all wrong.

But I am not alone.

And for that I continue, for I know I never will be alone. To help another is to help thyself. There is no 'you' and there is no 'me.' We are all one and in each one of us there is all.