There's a saying that goes, "we all have the same 24 hours". In the strictest sense, of course that's true; people can't travel back in time and double their available hours. Except, while we all pass through time at the same rate---presumably---that doesn't mean our time is equally usable.
There are obvious examples, such as a person with young children or others to care for having less time to themselves than those who don't. But here, I'm going to discuss depression, the way I experience it.
My depression steals time from me. Daily, weekly, yearly. It saps my energy, makes me sleep longer than is healthy, makes me unable to concentrate on tasks. In many ways, I'm a very privileged person: OK financially, family support to fall back on, body is largely healthy, etc. On the other hand, at 28, almost 29, I've failed to build skills or a career; I haven't gotten much better at my arts and hobbies than I was ten years ago; I've never been romantically involved with anyone; until 27 I hadn't paid my own rent...I'm sure I could go on.
It makes me sad to think about the things I could have done by now if I didn't spend so much of my time on lying in bed, chasing treatments, and staring at empty browser tabs. I scroll on social media like everyone else, but often I don't care enough, or don't have the focus or the energy to do something even that simple and passive. YouTube really likes recommending me productivity/time management content, but most of the tips just aren't applicable to someone whose problem is not habitual scrolling or getting lost in TV shows, it's being unable to do *anything*. It helps a little if there are obvious consequences to doing nothing, but I've lost jobs and dropped college classes and bailed on friends (a LOT) because of this, too.
Reliability is something I really envy in others, because it doesn't feel like an attainable virtue for me. Showing up because others are counting on you, even if you're upset or tired or something bad just happened. It's just not something I can do these days. I don't know if I'll ever be able to have a job where I'm responsible for anything important. I don't feel like I can even keep a pet. I guess my hot take is that reliability may be a virtue, but it is also a privilege.
I'm getting too sad and exhausted to continue, and if I don't post now I suspect I won't do it. If you've never had clinical depression, it's probably hard to understand how debilitating it can be. It's more or less ruined my teens and twenties. I hope you never learn what it feels like.