I have fought a lifelong battle with depression. Someone once asked me what depression felt like so I wrote this:
Depression is a curse that eats away at life and leaves
behind an empty shell. It is a dark,
steep decent into a hell never imagined by anyone except those who have
suffered from it. The hell exists in canyons
of your mind that are so deep, escape is impossible; so dark seeing any ray of
hope is impossible, so devoid of hope that life itself is the enemy, and the
only way out is death. The pathways into
the canyons are like the switchbacks of a mountain road descending from the
peak of the mountain into the valley below.
The paths repeatedly turn you from one direction to the next but the
decent is always there getting you closer and closer to the bottom. The path, unlike a road which has an
ascending portion, never leads out of the canyon – there is no escape. No escape path, no escape mechanism, just
downward spiraling emotions and ever increasing despair. The path is a seemingly never ending
journey. It can last weeks, months, years,
or even a lifetime. The path takes you
farther and farther from the sunlight, farther and farther from the light and
warmth the sunlight once provided. It constantly
reduces the possibility of ever seeing hope.
The darkness and coldness of the night air render your body unable to
fight, unable to will yourself to live.
You just accept the decent as the inevitable and pray for the end of the
path at which death awaits you. You
alone decide when the path ends. You
alone have to decide when the cold and darkness are unbearable. You alone decide when the misery will end. You alone must summon the courage to end your
path.