The Month I Lived Like I Was Already Dead

I can’t remember exactly when it started. Not the day. Not the moment. Just a slow fading—like a photograph left out in the sun too long.

People talk about depression as sadness. Heavy crying, locked bedroom doors, cancelled plans. But what I experienced was quieter. It was the absence of everything. Like someone turned the volume down on my life until I could barely hear it anymore.

For thirty days—maybe more—I lived like I was already dead. And the scariest part? Most people didn’t even notice.

I woke up every day at the same time, usually around 8:15 a.m., not because I had somewhere to be, but because that’s when the sun pushed through the blinds just enough to make staying asleep uncomfortable. I’d roll over, stare at the ceiling, and ask myself the same question I asked every morning:

“What’s the point?”

It wasn’t suicidal ideation, not in the way people describe with crisis hotlines and goodbye notes. It was more like… indifference. Like if life was a show, I had quietly slipped into the role of background extra. Not quite gone, but definitely not starring in anything.

I stopped replying to texts. They stacked up like unopened mail. Even the “You okay?” messages didn’t register. I didn’t have the energy to lie, and the truth felt like a burden I couldn’t share.

Food became mechanical. I ate to stop the stomach pangs, not because I wanted to. Some days, toast. Some days, just coffee. My taste buds forgot joy.

I worked remotely, and no one on Zoom could see the gray growing behind my eyes. I smiled when I needed to. I turned in tasks. I met deadlines. And when the camera turned off, I shut down too.

It wasn’t sadness. It was stillness. A hollow, anesthetized kind of existence.

I remember one afternoon—somewhere around day twelve—I was sitting on the couch, watching the same commercial loop three times in a row. I didn’t reach for the remote. I didn’t even blink. That’s when it hit me.

I hadn’t cried in weeks. I hadn’t laughed either. Nothing had moved me in either direction.

I had become a ghost in my own life.

I think that realization should’ve scared me. But even fear requires emotion. And I had none.

I don’t know what finally cracked the surface. Maybe it was the journal I found under my bed while cleaning out a drawer. It was one of those "start on any day" types, half-filled with entries from two years ago when I was dreaming big and feeling everything.

I flipped to a page that read:

> "I feel alive. I don’t know where I’m going, but I can’t wait to get there."

It hit me like a punch to the chest.

That person felt foreign. But also familiar. Like someone I used to love and hadn’t spoken to in years. I stared at the sentence until my eyes burned.

And then—I cried.

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t poetic. It was choking, shoulder-shaking sobs that came out of nowhere and wouldn’t stop. I didn’t even know what I was crying for.

Maybe for the time I’d lost.

Maybe for the version of me I abandoned.

Maybe for nothing at all.

But it was the first thing I’d felt in a month.

And that was something.

The next morning, I made tea.

Not coffee.

Tea.

I’m not sure why that matters, but it felt like a decision. A conscious act. Something done not just to numb the body but to nourish it.

I sat by the window and sipped slowly. It tasted faintly of peppermint and maybe hope.

I opened my laptop. Not for work. For me.

I wrote something. Just a paragraph. It was messy and unstructured and full of emotion I didn’t know I still had access to.

But it was real.

It was mine.

That day, I went outside.

I didn’t go far. Just a short walk down the block. The sky was the same muted gray it had been all week, but the air felt different. I noticed a bird on a wire, tapping its foot like it was dancing to a song I couldn’t hear. I noticed a child giggling as her balloon tried to escape the grip of the wind.

For the first time in weeks, I noticed.

And noticing is the first step back to living.

It didn’t all change at once. Healing rarely does.

Some days, I still felt empty. Some nights, I still stared at the ceiling and asked “what’s the point?” But now, I had tiny answers.

Maybe the point was noticing the bird.

Maybe it was writing something real.

Maybe it was drinking tea instead of coffee.

Maybe the point was that there is no point—except to feel it all and keep going anyway.

I started texting people back.

One by one.

I didn’t say, “I’m cured.” I just said, “Hey. I’ve been quiet. I’m still here.”

And sometimes, that’s enough.

Now, months later, I look back at that silent month and realize it wasn’t the end of something.

It was a pause.

A stillness.

A cocoon.

I thought I had died inside, but maybe I was just resting.

Maybe I was gathering the strength to become someone I hadn’t met yet.

I’m not writing this to give you a five-step guide to healing. I don’t have one. And I’m not going to tell you to go for a walk or drink more water or think positive thoughts.

What I will say is this:

If you’re in the quiet…

If you feel like a ghost in your own life…

If you wake up and wonder, “What’s the point?”

I see you.

And maybe—just maybe—that numbness isn’t the end.

Maybe it’s the beginning of something else.

Something softer.

Something true.

Because even when it feels like everything inside you has gone quiet, your heart is still beating.

And that matters.

That counts.

You count.

Even now.

Especially now.