As November paves the way for copious amounts of food and then snowstorms and unnecessary quantities of Christmas jams EVERYWHERE... I wanted to share this piece about Depression and Anxiety. The average age for an onset anxiety disorder is 11-years-old. I keep thinking about this, about whether or not it would have been a good idea to discuss this before suddenly it was more prevalent or they realized it was important overall. Maybe at 11, I would have had a better handle on the anxiety and depression combo, had I known.

Depression. It’s white, concaved walls closing in. A mirror encasing your breath and asking you to breathe deeper. A moment or so when rays no longer hit your skin but pierce your eyes. It’s every night of consistent tossing and turning in hopes of rectifying the intense pressure building in your head. It’s 2 am munchies, when your hunger is fictitious and your eyes are bigger than your stomach. Hopelessness caresses you, encouraging you into their embrace as if you were lovers. Loneliness parading as Depression ribbons around you. A constant web of lies when Anxiety feverously whispers into your ears of everything that could be wrong with you… how you are, what you’ve done, what you’ve said. As the racing thoughts bombard you, Anxiety squeals with the overwhelming need to reembrace Panic.

No. Please… Please stop, I can’t… I can’t take another ounce of the torture continuously assaulting my mind. Sunlight cannot find me here. Please. I am so tired, so lethargic and estranged. Getting out of bed has become a chore and eating a solace. I keep hearing them ‘Don’t be so sad’ or ‘Get over it’ … Get over it? I hadn’t realized that I had come down with the common cold. I was unaware that this daunting feeling of darkness was something I could instantly cure with just a few words. One moment you’re fine… and then you’re not.

Depression has that about her. It’s the way she embraces you, cradling the very fabric of yourself within the depths of Despair. I am trying to crawl out; out of the darkness, but for you… it’s simple. It’s not so simple for me. You see… Depression has instilled this undeniable love for me within my heart. She’s contracted Anxiety, Panic, and Loneliness to assist in my demise. However, for them, it’s not exactly an ending, it’s a beginning, a friendship. I am being courted by Depression, Bribed by Anxiety, Tickled by Panic, and Jabbed by Loneliness. You could not possibly understand… unless you felt their arms around you. So please… consider that it’s not as simple as letting it go... as if Depression would let me leave, she’s controlling in that way. There’s a reason it’s obscure and bleak in her presence. There’s a reason to have a sense of fear of everything that could occur at any given moment. See it’s not what just happens… it’s the moments that are invented in our minds, the anxious thoughts that give Panic his green flag. It entices them to be cruel, to allow Melancholy soak into the skin as if nothing else in the world could ever cause favor and sunlight.

Don’t tell me to let it go. If you don’t know my unwelcome friends then you don’t get to preach at me. You don’t have the authority to give me sound advice on how to evade their attacks because you just don’t understand. I am not mad… people try to help, I know they do… but believe me, it’s hard to help us when we are being strangled beneath them. It doesn’t last forever, but for the moment it’s now and we have to ride Depressions wave into the morning.

Perhaps the sun will find us in some other way.