The word depression or depressed is used a little too loosely now and days. It's not like regular sadness and often times many tend to misunderstand. It's not a choice, and if it was, it's not a choice any sane person would ever inflict on themselves. It's a virus that has no cure. The pills that keep my soul from crumbling at the feet of this monster only treat its symptoms. Depression effects hygiene, meal planning, motivation, creativity, it effects every single aspect of my life down to the last detail. I could stay in bed and develop bed sores for months if I was allowed. Hunger isn't even a driven enough reason to get out of bed. While typically, I would do absolutely anything for food. During its cycles it can cause even the faintest smells of delicious comfort food, to invoke nausea. I see depression as sort of like an antisocial figure, it's not dark but it does exist at the very corner of my brain. It sits on an old wooden rocking chair staring blankly at the wall. It doesn't talk often and it doesn't move either. Roots grow from its feet and form all around my mind, as it rocks slowly back and forth.
I can't function properly with it around, it absorbs all the nutrients of normal functionality and disrupts everything else. I grew up being told that being depressed is a choice, not a mental handicap. The pill was a cure all not something that just treated symptoms. Depression doesn't have a face, it's like slender man - a faceless killer. It claims the souls of so many and it's almost claimed mine. Everything just aches when I'm under it's influence, every bone, every muscle, every cell, feels like it's on fire. Movement is limited changing clothes is impossible, taking a shower feels like the hardest thing in the world to do. So usually I wouldn't take one, I would skip out on a shower several times a week until I felt filthy enough to make the effort to shower.
Food was gross, what normally pleased me that I enjoyed would be revoked. I wouldn't even want to get up to use the bathroom or drink water. I couldn't do anything, and I didn't want to do anything either.
In time I sort of became like a vampire, despising food and sunlight, rejecting movement, and company. People didn't know or care to understand that I wanted to be left alone. Although I was grateful that I was never left alone. I'm happy that someone always nagged me to get up or move, to eat or go outside, or even to bathe.
I know that because of this virus, I don't respond normally to typical human emotion. I'm not as sensitive to the emotional spectrum of things, or maybe I'm too sensitive. I didn't cry during tragic movies were it was a normal reaction to cry. Death to me wasn't tragic, its just a state of being. I didn't see or feel the emotional connection to things. I wouldn't interact with many people because I knew I was different. I was treated differently, evaluated differently and looked at weirdly. Although I was made to believe that I was normal nothing about me was that way at all. To be honest it's not all that bad to be different.
Yet, it effected me to be seen as different. It's a sort of messed up taboo that I tell myself. Being different is okay, but being seen as different isn't that great.
Depression makes me want to kill myself. It reminds me of how worthless my life is. Although I see a silver lining every now and again. I'm always feeling like I'm one step away from drowning. My head is held barely above water that's suffocating me. I'm standing on an uneven rock that determines my fate on wether I'll drown or live. Coming up for air is a constant desire and need, yet it's impossible to attain.
Sometimes in these dark moments not even music can keep the monster at bay. My paradise gets ripped to shreds by reality. That it's only a memory, that will never happen again. Nothing will ever be the same as it was. My paradise it is frozen forever in an unattainable moment I'll never return too. The only way I can get there is by memory. Yet, every single day my memory fails me a little more and more. One day I won't remember anymore and I think that's the day I'll fall victim to this foul beast. That will be the day I will meet my fated end.
Until then I have to face this quiet beast that resides inside my head. To live alongside this unwanted roomate until my time ends.
