If Only You Understood

Depression... there's that word again.

Why does everyone shut you down when you mention that word? Is it because it scares them because they can't see it or is it because they don't understand it?

I wish I could shut down from it, run away and pretend it doesn't exist but I can't... so why should you? Why should you have the privilege to pick and choose when you want to be part of my world?

"It's all in your head," you say to me, "You're just putting it on, you're an attention seeker."

If I was an attention seeker why do I hide away? Why do I put a smile on my face and pretend I'm okay? Why don't I let you see me breaking every second of the day?

My answer is because this is real, yes it may all be in my head but not in the way people say it is. My mind is a war zone that I can't escape from. You may have monsters under your bed but mine live in my head. The monsters pick the worse times to come out but that's the sad truth of depression, it doesn't like you being happy.

I'm out with my friends, I'm feeling better today and I am having a laugh and a joke, I haven't had this in a while because I've isolated myself from the world. I'm feeling fresh, for the first time in a while I haven't worn a fake smile then all of a sudden the black cloud washes over me, thoughts start swarming into my mind I want to go home. I can't stand being out any longer. My world starts to close in, I can't breathe. Although I'm not in water, I'm drowning. I'm stuck in this box, it's filling up and filling up I can't get out. I hit the glass as hard as I can but it doesn't smash. The water is now above my head I'm running out of air, I give up fighting and give in to water and let it fill my lungs, I pass out.

I wake up, I am at home. Where did my friends go? Then I remember. I give up trying to meet up with old and new friends, my monsters want me to themselves. They get jealous when I'm happy, they don't like me being happy with someone else. My life is controlled by this monster. But according to everyone else it's all in my head.

I just want to be normal. All my previous relationships have broken down because I'm numb, I feel nothing and care for nothing. They tried to shower me with love, I can't feel it. They tried to tell me how beautiful I am, wish I could believe it.

People think been depressed is just being sad, crying, and just feeling low but it's so much deeper than that. Depression is having a smile on your face but dying inside, it's helping everyone else out with there problems just so you can forget about your own, it's looking at yourself in the mirror and hating what you see and existing but not being alive inside. It's about waking in the morning and thinking about bedtime and having someone love every inch of you but yet you feel worthless and alone.

Their is so much more to depression and it affects everyone in their own individual ways I can list every symptom that comes to mind and someone has experienced something different.

Depression shouldn't be a taboo subject it should be a well known subject so people can understand victims more and help them. We already feel alone and a burden and feel ashamed and guilty for bothering people but that's not going to make us sufferers better.

Depression is real.