matthew lush & nick laws • this

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| t h i s |

prologue.

matthew lush doesn't remember exactly when the depression set in. he believes that it was around the time he began his high school years, but that was nearly ten years ago, and he doesn't like to admit it's been that long. there have been short periods of satisfaction, wherein he feels like himself again, looks forward to and gets excited about things, doesn't fantasize about crashing his car into a brick wall or driving it off a cliff on a daily basis, but mostly his life has passed in a blur of sluggishness and self-loathing and suicidal urges.

he continuously attends school and stares at the contrast of the words against the background of educational power points, his pen glides across paper and records the notes, but he doesn't absorb them. or much of anything anymore. once upon a time, his previous job running a concession stand at a local concert venue made him feel slightly better. he liked to use music as an escape from the real world; so being able to stick around to listen to performers during the concerts was ideal, but the more the sickness set in, the less he was able to enjoy it. he sometimes goes out with his friends in an attempt to distract himself from the dreary thoughts making home in his head, but his eyes are distant and his attempts at conversation are awkward and half-hearted when it's so hard to care about anything.

possibly the worst part of it is he knows he doesn't have a real reason to be this way, so he hates himself for being such an ungrateful little shit. his therapist tells him otherwise, says there's no "real reason" for depression, that it's common for people in all walks of life, it's just a chemical imbalance in his brain he has no control over, blah blah blah. all he sees is that he's 25 years old with a steady income, two years of schooling under his belt, and he gets to share a cozy apartment with two of the best people he's ever known. so why is that not enough? why does he constantly feel like something's lacking, like there's no point of even getting out of bed in the mornings? this should be the prime of his life, and he's tortured daily by the knowledge that he's letting it waste away.

he really does live comfortably, so to anyone on the outside it probably seems like his life is on track. his problem is that he has no idea where that track is headed, what he wants to do with his future or where he pictures himself ten, five, even two years from now, and he still isn't entirely sure he wants to be around to find out.

he wakes every day with the heavy weight of dread pinning him to the mattress, coaxing him into ditching all his responsibilities and just going back to sleep. most of the time, it doesn't take much convincing. the days that he gives into it are beginning to outweigh the days he doesn't, and because of it he's stopped attending school and is hanging on his last thread at work. maybe he should be more concerned that school is required to make anything of your life nowadays, or that his job is his only source of income and he needs it to keep surviving; and maybe the worrying over these facts should be enough to make him haul his ass out of bed every morning, but then maybe the world shouldn't be so hard and stressful and maybe his room shouldn't be so safe and familiar.

on the days that he is able to will himself into active participation in life, he does it by taking comfort in the idea that at any moment, he can choose to make it his last. If things get to be too much, I can always kill myself he keeps the thought tucked away in the back of his mind and clings to it to get him through every grueling moment of longing and emptiness and fear. longing for something more, something exciting, something to shake him up and make him feel alive again, the great big reason to keep on living. emptiness because he doesn't have it yet, and each day he can feel himself getting more and more tired of waiting for it to come along. fear. because what if it never does?

he sees the flatness every day in the people around him. retail workers stuck at the same miserable job until retirement, people trapped in loveless marriages, homeless men taking shelter in dark alleys, burnouts with nothing left behind their eyes but apathy. he simultaneously fears becoming one of them, yet knows he already is. he thinks it's just a matter of time before he decides enough is enough, but something still keeps him fighting every day, and most of the time he wishes it didn't. he wishes he could smother his basic human instinct for survival and just have the courage to let go of consciousness for good. weekly therapy combined with daily medication is barely working to keep him interested in this world.

and then one day, he finds something that works a whole lot better.

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