Mind Cloud"

The fog never arrives with a warning. It doesn't roar like a storm or announce itself with thunder. It slips in silently, seeping through the cracks of a seemingly normal day. One moment you're brushing your teeth, thinking about what to wear. The next, you’re sitting on the edge of your bed, staring into nothing, unable to remember why you got up at all.

For Jonah, the fog had become a familiar visitor. At first, he thought it was just stress. The long work hours, the missed calls from friends, the endless news cycles filled with bad headlines. But as weeks turned into months, he began to realize it was something else—something quieter, deeper, and much more persistent.

It was a Tuesday when he first called it “depression.” The word felt strange in his mouth, like a language he wasn’t sure he had the right to speak. He wasn’t crying all the time. He wasn’t suicidal. He went to work, paid his bills, even made small talk with the barista at the café on the corner. How could he be depressed?

But depression, he would learn, is not always loud. Sometimes it is a cloud—a slow, heavy mist that wraps itself around the mind and body, making everything feel just a little harder, a little heavier. Getting out of bed is a negotiation. Answering a text feels like running a marathon. Even happiness, when it happens, feels suspicious. Fragile. Temporary.

Jonah began to journal, a practice his therapist recommended. At first, he wrote only one sentence a day. “Still here.” “Tired.” “Numb.” But over time, the words grew longer, more honest.

"It’s like I’m walking through a fog that no one else can see. Everyone’s moving around me, laughing, planning trips, falling in love—and I’m just trying to keep from disappearing. It’s exhausting, pretending to be okay."

In those pages, Jonah began to unravel the layers of his fog. He traced it back to his childhood, where emotions were often dismissed or met with discomfort. “Don’t cry.” “Man up.” “Be grateful—you have no reason to feel this way.” He realized how much he had internalized the belief that sadness was a flaw, something shameful to be hidden or fixed.

But depression is not a flaw. It’s an illness. A chemical imbalance, yes—but also a response. To trauma. To loneliness. To disconnection in a world that demands constant performance.

He thought about the cloud often. If he could draw it, it would hover just above his head—dark and swirling, full of thoughts that whispered, “You’re not enough.” “You’re a burden.” “You’ll never feel better.” These thoughts didn’t shout, but they didn’t stop either. They simply loomed, thickening the air around him, stealing the color from the world.

And yet, there were moments—brief, fragile moments—where the fog thinned. A song would play that reminded him of summer. A friend would send a meme that made him laugh unexpectedly. A child on the train would smile at him with unfiltered joy. In those moments, light would pierce through the mist, reminding him that he was still here. Still alive. Still capable of feeling.

Jonah began to open up. Slowly, cautiously. He told a friend, then another. He shared his journal with his therapist, who helped him challenge the voices in his cloud. “What if you’re not a burden?” she asked once. “What if the people who care about you are just waiting for you to let them in?”

It wasn’t a sudden change. Recovery, he learned, is not linear. There were setbacks, dark days, moments where the fog felt thicker than ever. But there were also victories. Waking up and making breakfast. Going for a walk without headphones, just listening to the world. Saying, out loud, “I’m not okay”—and being met with compassion instead of judgment.

The more he spoke, the lighter he felt. Not because the depression vanished, but because it lost some of its power. Shame can’t survive in sunlight, and Jonah was learning to let in the light.

One day, months later, he stood in a park under a gray sky. The clouds were real this time, drifting slowly across the horizon. He watched them pass, feeling a strange sense of kinship. Clouds are temporary, he realized. Even the darkest ones move on.

He still had foggy days. But now, he had tools. He had support. He had the knowledge that what he was feeling wasn’t weakness—it was a part of being human. And being human meant he could also feel joy, connection, and hope.

Jonah looked up at the sky and smiled faintly.

“I see you,” he whispered to the cloud. “But I’m still here.”