Meet my new friend, Trigger

I wish I knew how to describe it. I have heard it described beautifully, and I have heard it belittled, simplified, defined for the amusement of others. There are no flowery words, no hard lines of definition. It is vagueness personified. It is murky, foggy, shadowy nothingness with a healthy dose of hell mixed through. It borrows you, piece by piece, for its own. Depression is not always dark. Sometimes it is blinding white terror with the volume turned down for the sensitive. Drowning isolation occurs simply within your skull. Or your psyche… whatever. Depression finds what ever is the quintessential you and taints it, causing it to slowly rot away.


I don’t understand how some people don’t get it. But then again, most don’t grow up watching it. Seeing it personified in your parents, your surroundings, your life. For me, depression is as natural as breathing. It is the constant companion from my childhood. It is the make-believe friend that I never outgrew. It is the cause of my self-deprecating humor and the roots of my neurosis. I do quite literally picture this thing as a shadow, following everywhere, almost comforting in its reliability. Parents, friends, lovers, even husbands have left…depression never. Ironic that it is my longest relationship.


We make a good team, depression and I. We are on the same-wavelength. Soul-sisters. Damn. Talk about your fucked-up relationships. I wish depression and I could just take a break.


How do you break up with a disease? (Insert joke about ex-husband here) I know this relationship is unhealthy. I know I need to end this and move on. I see how it affects the real people in my life. I get it. Really. But I don’t know how. It’s like facing an abusive partner, one that is bigger, badder, meaner and stronger than me. Every time I try to leave depression, it makes me pay for my insolence. In spades. A dose of torture will be meted out and measured.


I find that I resent the good times, because I know that a crash is coming. The crash is around the corner at all times. I try, to see the beauty and good. I stop and look at the simple things that bring me joy. Not in a “Stop and smell the roses” kinda way, but in a “hang onto this moment, ‘cause you’re gonna need it soon to keep from doing something stupid” way. I am not suicidal. Would never act in this selfish way. My love for my children is too great. My fear of what would be said about me after I’m gone keeps me from ever acting. But have I played it out in my head? Yes. Does everyone? I don’t know. Maybe. For years I assumed everyone thought this way. And not in a trivial way, not in a “Here’s how I would do it if I absolutely, positively HAD to with no other alternative”.



So what now. Depression and I have fought again and I lost. Now it wants to wrap its arms around me comfort me with the familiarity that I recognize. Depression wants to hold my hand and my head and walk through my everyday with me. We can share some self-loathing with our dinner and discuss our denial. I don’t have the strength to tell it no again. So here we go. I’ll take care of my kids, give The Man and my job all I can, but right now, I am Depression’s bitch.