My postings here have been sporadic to say the least. In part because lately, I find myself struggling in the sea of my depressive bouts. Some rounds I win, some rounds I lose and when I do, I’m face planted onto the ground I’m standing on and it is scarily comforting. I don’t even wanna pick myself up for a while. As much as I am self-professed makeup addict, even the latest in makeup can’t peel me off from my current faceplant.

I can’t stay there forever because I know I just can’t. But pulling myself back up from what my mind and my body considers to be falsely comforting is easier said than done. The most I can manage are attempts each and every day when I lose to a bout of depression (because these fuckers tend to last pretty damn long). Eventually, I’ll have worn it out enough that I can break through and be on my feet again.

But it isn’t a permanent victory – it just so happens that I managed to outhold my depression. Playing with my makeup collection helps. Sometimes. I don’t know how girls (and guys, because let’s face it: guys can do makeup too) could go through the lengthy ritual of doing their makeup for a simple snapshot (out of possibly tens of)  to post on Instagram, only to wipe all that effort off at the end of the day. And that’s the opening that my depression just needs to push me right back.

And don’t even get me started on the things I hear from it when I’m down: who are you trying to fool with that makeup? You’re not beautiful, no matter how much foundation you use or how good you blend that eyeshadow. That can never hide the fact that you’re just a selfish asshole deep down – it’s why you can never have a boyfriend or you lost yours to his side chick. What happens when you show up with a face full of makeup and a guy sees it and falls in love with “that” you? Will he still love you when he sees the pores on your cheeks, the acne on your neck, the blackheads on your nose? Who are you kidding, really? 

No makeup could ever hide the fact that you’re clingy and overemotional. He hated you for it and so does everyone else. That’s why they left you. 

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. And they’re, more often than not, horribly right. Try as I might to disprove those painful thoughts, they prove to be true in the end. Perhaps it can be chalked to a self-fulfilling prophecy (which I still try to understand – how does me trying to prove my depression wrong end up proving it right?), but I see that explanation as a cop-out.

I figured that if I’m going to do a beauty blog, I can’t just endlessly talk about one half of it, which is just makeup. Because a million other bloggers do it on a daily basis. But what about the other, unglamorous half of being a beauty blogger? What about the days when makeup becomes a boon instead of a mood lifter?

Let’s be real: it ain’t all highlighters and color spectrum eyeshadows on fleek all the time in beauty land.