Dear depression. You came into my life uninvited. You were so arrogant that you didn't even care to ask for permission before you settled in and made yourself feel at home. Within no time you took over the rails and called the shots. Your presence became so overpowering and so dominating that I completely faded into the background, bit by bit, slowly but surely I shrank into your dark gloom. I became a stranger in my own home, a nonentity in my own space. I no longer had a say in anything, you took my voice away, you took my thoughts away, you overshadowed me and I began to view everything through your thick smokey lens.
I became a prisoner where I was supposed to rule, a slave to your dark whims, I was trapped in a space I had once owned. Days became weeks, weeks became months, and months became years. Before I knew it, I had lost myself completely in your darkness. My identity, my personality, my confidence, and everything I was had all disappeared into your void. Unexpectedly you had become familiar, and I began to feel safe in your thick fog. Your presence became a secure space, I came to believe that maybe you had my best in heart, that maybe all you ever wanted was to protect me from this wicked world. But we both know I was mistaken, you never cared, all you ever wanted was to make me miserable, all you ever yearned for was to drain me of all happiness and prevent me from living my best life. You just never cared.
You Isolated me, you made me believe I was better off alone. You made me build walls all around me, you made me believe they were meant to keep me safe, but instead, they made me feel the worst loneliness to ever exist, I felt misunderstood, and I felt out of place wherever I went. I was miserable. Why was I even still inhaling and exhaling? Why was I even still living? I was more of a walking dead, I was alive but dead and dead but alive. A ghost in the land of the living, that is what you made me.
I had no expectancy of ever seeing the light again, even thinking about it felt futile. I had come to know your gloom so well, it had totally consumed me that I feared how things would be if it were ever to go away. The misery you brought had become my companion. Your darkness was so familiar that I dreaded ever seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, I feared ever finding the end of the rainbow. But I found it, it found me, even though you were not delighted to roll out the red carpet. The light shone through and brightened the darkness, it opened my eyes and I realized that as much as I thought I had found solace in you, I was merely your prisoner. Bit by bit the dawn took over the dusk, bit by bit the chains were falling, and gradually you were losing your authority over me. In your rage, you decided to wage the most severe attack ever, you gave me a huge blow it threatened to send me to a never-ending sleep, and you broke me down into pieces. But little did you know that you were actually giving me a good chance to start over, little did you know that in the process of breaking me down, you set me free from your snare.
Maybe I may never be totally rid of you, for I can still see your foot prints on the sands of my heart, for I can still hear you breathing down my neck, looming over me wanting to take over the rains. I know you are there, but I am done letting you rule my life. I have found the light and I’m never letting go, no matter how hard you try to pull me back into your vacuum, I am never giving in. I may still feel your presence at times and want to crumble in your hands, but I will choose to still stand tall and fight for my dear life. I will hold on to the morning and let it lead me away from the night, and let it draw me closer to the day. Life may throw me curveballs at times, and I may falter and feel lost, but I will never allow you to deceive me again, I will never open my doors for you again. Dear depression, I will no longer allow you to rob me of my energy and strength, I will use it to make something beautiful out of my dreams and passions. For your information, you are not as powerful as you think you are, dear depression, you don't have authority over me.
If you or anyone you know is struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, please contact SADAG on 0800 567 567 ASAP.