Depression- Descriptive Writing

Depression means that without sound, the mind plummets downward into less and less light, and darkness beyond measure. Is there a bottom to the mind's pain? Is there any branch of hope, or something to catch or hold onto? Is there some rescuing idea that can come into the thoughts of the victim? How much darkness can one take without any light? It seems that hope cannot come from within us, so it has to enter from outside.

A Dustbowl of the soul, melting into soundless oblivion, falling, bottomless pit, nothing to grab onto, as steady and as merciless as sinking sand, smothered, tears as silent as the grave roll in steady procession, firm grip of desolation, as if the soul was being trampled on by feet in heavy boots. There's nothing tragically beautiful about depression. It's not sad songs, poetry, shy glances or drowning in the bath. It's not thin ghostly white skin tainted by sagging charcoal circles under large sad eyes and large purple bruises stretching viciously up and up your arms. It isn't silent and lonely walks, vacant coffee shops or smoking dusty cigarettes. Depression is unwashed clothes and flaking skin. It's over eating and the inability to even get out of bed. It's giving up on yourself and not taking pride in your appearance anymore. Its empty inboxes, bursts of anger and late night tears. It's a feeling of disgust within yourself that makes you want to tear off your own skin just so you can feel clean. Its uncertainty and confusion. It's losing weight, long showers and greasy hair. It's constantly wishing you could be somewhere or someone else. It's losing the will to even live. Depression is not tragically beautiful, it's just tragic.

It’s the unseen, unheard, the silent killer. It's the pain that's too much to cope with, too hard to deal with and so misunderstood. You can't escape it no matter how hard you try, because it follows you around like a black shadow that's on the inside, eating you. The blizzard removes the illusion of his eyes. With sight he is not alone, he is one of many in the world and the world is full of interesting things to see, to touch to feel, to keep my mind anchored in time and space. But as the white flakes whirl around him in an angry vortex he is as alone as he would be in the bleakness of space and cold, so cold. He reached out with his gloved hand to guide his way but it is swallowed before it has gone even a few inches. To save his eyes from the blinding white he must narrow them until they are almost shut, and all the while the wind rages without end, only reducing its ferocity long enough to gather the strength for another attack. All his heart can do is beat warm blood around his veins in a hope that the storm will end, all my mind can do is plan the most logical path to warmth, safety and to something more tangible than light and snow.

He had always treasured the flowers and the birds, loved the sunlight and the clouds that drift by. He always valued the way the leaves move in a breeze and that forgiving whispering sound they make, like nature trying to chat to his innocent mind. Yet the tiredness that began remains like a veil over his skin, grey and unsympathetic. And as he watches the petals and the twigs outside the window, there is only a creeping sorrow where there should be joy. It sits like November rain on his skin; enough to chill what was once warm inside. At any other time he would have called a friend, asked for the warmth he needed to ward it off, but the feeling was so deep rooted, he couldn’t blurt it out just as he couldn’t show them his insides. Impossible without immense pain and possible death. No longer. Now he just lets it come, drop by drop and he feels like it is an ocean falling upon him instead of rain – as if the grief of all the previous years he had carefully thrown from his mind, had all condensed right above his head into a cloud large enough to block the sun. They say it can't rain forever, that there will come a time when it must cease, that the last drop will have fallen. Thing is, he just doesn’t care. He says he will still be true to himself, still help others, but he plans to just stay here in the cold, comfortably numb.

'It's heavy' was the only way he could define it. He had to carry it around even though he never wanted it. It was always over him, casting its shadow on his life. It was hung by a thin thread, too fragile to hold something so heavy. Most of the time he didn't know what caused the thread to finally break releasing the weight on him. It fell too fast, and before he could run he'd be pinned down. It crushed his ribs, made it hard for him to breathe. He tried to scream; a cry for help was of no use. No one else could see it - the weight that had been slowly crushing him to death. He looks at it like the fire in his eyes have been doused with ice water, if anything it makes the blue more pale. It's like he just crawled right back inside some invisible hell and no matter who tries to penetrate it, he's unreachable. He moves his eyes more slowly, like they're heavy, an effort to move. Someone tries to crack a joke but he won't laugh. He is standing in the hallway around hundreds of children, but he might as well be on the moon. Death wasn't kind. He knew that. It snatched where it could, take people who were too young and far too good.

He stood on the brink of something he couldn't describe. The weight of everything seemed to press down on his shoulders and he struggled to take even a single step forward. It was too much. All of it. Yet somehow, he kept moving. But every step cost him. The darkness grew darker; the pain grew sharper; all of it seemed to only grow in strength and he began to wonder if things could ever get better. But he never said a word. Sometimes he wonders if that smile- the horribly fake smile- is ever seen through. If someone ever notices that sad, broken look in his eyes that he stares at in the mirror. If they see beauty where they see the ugliness. And then he laughs, a bitter, sarcastic laugh, at himself. Nobody cares. No one notices. They never seem to, do they? He fought for years. He just marches on and on. To the day it breaks. That will be the day.