Please welcome our guest writer for today, Annie Williams.  Annie graduated in 2013 and currently lives in Mount Hermon, California. She blogs at http://cyclecommasplice.blogspot.com/

4 OFTEN
Often I go to bed as soon after dinner
as seems adult
(I mean I try to wait for dark)
in order to push away
from the massive pain in sleep’s
frail wicker coracle.
“Having it out with Melancholy” Jane Kenyon

I’ve been asked to define depression for you. It’s a terrifically stupid task. It can’t be done. There’s been a theme of “what it is to be okay” on The Post Calvin. I can’t help you there, either. It’s been too long since I’ve felt “okay” in order for me to describe it or use it as a point of reference.

No, surprisingly or not, it’s not necessary to have a point with which to compare depression in order to describe it. And, yes, I realize it is not enough to simply say depression is not “okay.” It’s a cluster-fuck of a situation, as one therapist said.

Everything in the body rebels. Your head hurts, you’re tired, you’re an insomniac, you’re a narcoleptic, you’re mute, you’re alone, deafened, crowded, screaming screaming screaming.

You’re dying.

No, I do not make light of death or of the dying.

It is not the same.

But damn is it painful. It is physically painful. Yes, physically. Depression isn’t one hundred percent a mind game. It’s more like Gladiator: maimed before the competition, Maximus stumbles into the arena. And then put it in slow-motion, step back, and watch on repeat the beasts and soldiers charge a sole human; watch over and over, knowing what is coming, being unable to stop it, and suffering the blows. It’s strange, watching oneself and feeling the pain with which that far off self is being inflicted.

But that’s depression. It isn’t blind. I watch myself in a cycle of torture and cannot figure out how to make it stop. If depression was blind, I wouldn’t so crave sleep, so dread awakening.

The massive pain.

IMG_2257Depression is medication (that you cannot keep because you cannot be trusted): Celexa, Ativan, Lamictal, Effexor, Seroquel, Abilify, Prozac, Lithium, Vyvanse. It’s 2014 sucked. It’s tomorrow’s a big word and not just because it has eight letters. It’s ohgodhelp with middle fingers cocked skyward. It’s too tired to be suicidal anymore. It’s “non-responsive” to treatment. It’s inpatient care. It’s a counselor sitting and crying because she cannot make you better.

That’s depression. Enjoy.

(All credit, unless otherwise noted, goes to Bipolar II.)

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