| How do you fight a crippling wave of darkness that eats away at your soul? On the days when it seems like the sadness and the pain will never end, how do you drag yourself out of bed to face a day consisting of seemingly meaningless tasks? How do you force yourself to care about anything at all, when the crushing pressure of the Universe is pressing in on your mind? I write. I suffer from Depression, and four days out of seven I wake to find it already lurking in the depths of my psyche. Unfortunately, I belong to the group for whom anti-depressants simply don�t work, which gives my adversary an advantage in our daily battles. I spend the majority of my waking hours feeling empty, worthless, tired, defeated, and lacking any sense of hope. It�s like wandering in the fog, unsure of where I am or who I am. Most nights I cry myself to sleep, and most days I wake dreading the day ahead. I was one of the lucky ones. I didn�t really experience Depression until after my second year in college, when I went on the Pill. I had brief blips with it in high school, but I had chalked it up to the pressure I was under at school. Who wouldn�t have bad days, or weeks, or months when they were fighting against their best friends for the class rankings? I didn�t take my �bad days� seriously, and that was a terrible mistake. Depression runs in my family, and while I had never had serious difficulties with it before, the prescription I was on triggered my first attack. For half of first semester, I was permanently caught in the lowest low possible. I stopped talking to people, I found myself spending more and more time sleeping, and I was sad all the time. I had gone from being a very vibrant person to shunning all human contact. The worst part was that I noticed. It was like I was behind a glass wall, locked away, watching some automaton live my life for me. Inside I was screaming for help, but I couldn�t get past the invisible wall in my mind. When I went home for Thanksgiving that fall, a friend (and occasional boyfriend) took me in to see a doctor. It turned out that the prescription I was on had a high side effect of Depression, especially in those who have it in their family history. All I could think was, �Why did you give a person with a severe family history of Depression that brand?!?!� After a week on my new Pill, I felt like myself for the first time in months. The girl trapped behind the glass wall found herself free, and it was beautiful. Then I fell in Love. For seven months I was the happiest woman in the world, and I was in Love with the cutest, sweetest (and sexiest!) guy I had ever met. I can honestly say I have never been happier in my life than I was when we�d snuggle on the couch. I still occasionally had my �bad� days, but they were few and far between. That should have been a hint, but I�d never actually read my little leaflet they�d given me about Depression, so I wasn�t looking for any warning signs. Note to self for future reference: Changes in lifestyle will trigger the moodswings! I lost the person I Loved more than anything else in the world, and my life came crashing to a halt. What started out as a normal depression at being left by the only person I cared about quickly spiraled into a full-blown Depression attack. My (dis)honorable adversary had been lurking, waiting for such an opportunity. A few missed meals (okay, a LOT of missed meals) and a slight tip of the hormonal balance, and WHAM. I wake up one morning to find myself behind the glass wall again. Once again, the feelings of hopelessness and worthless returned, eating away at me like a cancer. So in a fit of sanity I put post-it notes on my vast collection of pills that said, �Remember, you only get to take _insert number here_ of me! And no mixing!� I can honestly say the only thing that kept me from killing myself was the fact I knew everyone would blame my ex, and I knew he would blame himself, and I didn�t want him to feel guilty about my actions. I still Love him, and even that far into the Depression I wasn�t willing to hurt him just for my own release from the pain. When the Depression has its talons in me, I am a broken shell of a person. I�m still in the grips of my second major Depression attack, and it shows. I spend hours simply crying on my futon for reasons that I can�t quite place. But my �manic� days are starting to peek through the haze, and that�s a good sign. My days of pure hyperactivity and wild abandon signal the return to a more balanced presence in my mind, a release from my glass prison. People say, �What�s with you today?� and all I can do is laugh. The sheer fact that I can smile or laugh without a trace of bitterness, even if only for a few hours on isolated days, means that my adversary is slowly losing her grip. And while I wait for this attack to pass, I write. I�m no Anne Sexton or Neil Gaiman, and my insights are nowhere near as profound as Voltaire or Euripides. But I write, and sometimes it helps a little. With pen in hand, or before the computer screen, the girl in the glass box can write her way into a happier world. She can escape for a few precious moments, and show other people the world she�s trapped in. The Depression still has control of the body and mind, but the girl in the box can allow people to peek in through the window her words create. So don�t tell me my work is �depressing� or �frightening�. I am well aware of that fact. A broken soul is never a pretty sight. However, this is my release. This is my one way of combating the disease that wraps itself around my life. Writing is my drug, my release from the cell in my mind. It�s the only way I can express myself when the Depression takes hold, and I refuse to be a silent witness, silently screaming for help inside. |