The Black Hole

Depression has long been a friend of mine.  Even when I'm in a good place she's usually standing behind me, looking over my shoulder, and whispering her sweet nothings into my ear.  When I feel down, her arms are always open and waiting patiently for my return.  She never shames me or says "I told you so," she just holds me close and softly hums while I feel the tears dry up in my heart as it withers inside my chest.

With Depression in my life, things really don't matter.  I don't feel sadness and I don't feel joy.  If those enter my life they're admired and even mildly experienced, but it's so fleeting it's as if it didn't happen at all.  Good, bad, and all the things in between are viewed through this haze of apathy. I know I should care but I just don't.

We love to spend long days in bed with nothing but the covers and pillows to close out the infringements of the outside world.  I can sleep hour after hour in her arms followed by endless hours staring at the ceilings.  with Depression, nothing is what it should be, it's all mixed up and I want to change it, but the effort it takes is just more than I can possibly handle.  I'm so tired.  When I'm tired I can't function normally or with any resolve.

Life goes on around me and things pile up: laundry, food, dishes, a dirty house, and all the lists with one out of ten things checked off, lists made to guide and motivate and nothing more than a blaring sign of my failure and lack of ability.  All those important things that must be done in a timely manner in order for the world to continue, for children to thrive, and for me to improve, they all simply cease to have importance.

I walk through life in a bubble of goo.  Everything is slow and the bubble is tinted darkly so there is a hint of light that will sometimes show through, but when it does it's faded and tired, just the way I feel.

It's so easy to let myself slide backwards into a pit, a deep hole, where nothing truly matters and everything is peaceful and silent.  There I allow myself to stretch out fully and relax totally.  I begin to feel again, but the sensations are all wrong.  Instead of feeling relief I begin to feel a suffocating sensation of failure and loathing.  I've reached my bottom and in spite of reaching out for help, I find myself in the bottom pits of despair and cannot bring myself out.  Everything is gray and dreary, there is nothing I can do besides wallowing in misery and unhappiness.  There is no way out.  The walls of the hole are smooth and slippery with taunts of my uselessness and mistakes to make sure I can't get a good hold and make my way back out.

I long for the release of tears, a steady stream of pain rolling down my face while my body is wracked with sobs and wails of remorse, fear, and sorrow, but it's denied to me.  I cannot cry.I feel trapped and hopeless because the world is so remote and yet so looming and threatening all at once.

If I can get out of the hole long enough to participate in a normal activity, Depression follows at my heels reminding me of how worthless this all is and how each thing I do is nothing more than a drain on me and on my spirit.  I feel used and abused doing the things I'd normally done with such joy and verve.  As soon as the task is finished I rapidly crawl back into my hole and hide my head under the covers.  None of it matters anymore because even if I did do my best there would always be more to do and I'd have to do it over and over and over again forever with no thanks or appreciation.  I become a hollow shell dragging through life, just waiting for an opportunity to slip back into the comfort of my misery where I can truly be myself.

That's how it feels to be depressed in my life, and yet this doesn't describe the true depths of that pit I've termed my black hole.  It is a black hole, it sucks everything out of my life and leaves me feeling nothing but the negative and the bad.  Those simple things that once brought me joy are nothing more than a burden to trouble me and annoy me.  The only thing I can think of to end the pain is to wait for the inevitable end.