Do you remember a time when smiling came without pain?
What about leaving the warm isolation of your bed?
You spend hours contemplating whether to check the message just received or let it drown in a sea of unread notifications.
You want to call someone, talk and share, maybe cry, or even, gods forbid, ask for help. I am so very terribly sorry; however, I must thrive, and your energy and motivation are my favorite snack.
You miss your friends, your family… you haven’t spoken to them in weeks. You try to avoid conversations whenever possible. It tears you apart when you distance yourself, but those people don’t deserve your burden. These are your issues, not theirs, and they have enough on their plates. They don’t need you. No one needs you. At the end of it all, it’s you and me. I need you. Stay with me and I will make sure you never leave the shelter of your lonesomeness.
You really shouldn’t set an appointment with your doctor, with any doctor, because no one really wants to help you and you will just be another person complaining and wasting everyone’s time.
It really is time you understand – I am the only one who will never leave you. I am the only one who is truly there for you. Stop bothering people with your petty problems; start acting your age and just deal with it.
Daily tasks become excruciatingly difficult to the point where getting out of bed in the morning becomes a process of hours on end. You calculate how much energy each task will cost you and neglect the ones you can’t pay for. Remind me, when was the last time you made the bed? Shower? Disgusting. I love it.
Focus seems like a distant fantasy, one that is beyond reach. Nighttime becomes your enemy as sleep dissipates from your eyes, despite the exhaustion weighing heavy on your shoulders in daytime. Don’t your eyes feel heavy against those weightless efforts to keep them open?
Am I a nuisance to you quite yet?
On the rare occasions I loosen my grip on your reins, you smile and laugh, even enjoy a conversation or go to the store, cook a meal, sing in the shower… in those blissful moments, the future becomes visible, possible.
Don’t get used to it. In a split second, like lightning, I crush your morale to dust. That which caused you joy now triggers tears and a gut-wrenching desperation.
Is that a knife on the counter, gleaming in the fluorescent light as if a divine calling? Do you ever wonder what things in the world could inflict pain? Harm? Kill? Aren’t you tired of it all? Don’t you just want to sleep for a change?
You find solace in numbness and pain. Analgesics, alcohol, cannabis, cigarettes… each seems so beckoning, so comforting. I must admit, it hurts my feelings when you try to silence me. Not to worry, dear, because each pill, each shot, each toke and puff, I become stronger. The more you try to shut me up, the more dependent you are on the silence and when there is noise it’s absolutely deafening.
Have you stopped to think how things have changed since I’ve come into your life? For example, how’s that cello you bought after years of dreaming of playing again, only for it to collect dust in the corner? What about those boxes you’ve been meaning to paint since the summer before last?
Admit it, handling me is like a full-time job for you, only instead of getting paid for all your hard work and effort, you end up paying me with your life. Some employer I am, huh?
Did someone tell you they care about your well-being today? You know they are lying, right? Your mother told you she loves you? She will be so much happier when you stop breathing. Your brothers won’t remember you in a few years. No one will. Your partner is so tired of your constant misery and no, it doesn’t like company. When was the last time you even thanked anyone? When was the last time you allowed someone to be kind to you?
Your grades at school are barely acceptable, but you come from a family where education is everything. Just think about how many people are ashamed of you right now, or how many would have been if they only knew… that’s no surprise, though, because you’re not a source for anyone’s pride.
You can hate me, you can wish I was gone from your life, you can even try to get rid of me with counseling or therapy or even drugs, but you will never get rid of yourself.
Forever yours,
Depression.
The Missing Puzzle Piece 