Emptiness:A Feel for Depression

I never really understood depression.

It just didn't fit into my head that someone could not be happy. It almost seemed impossible, like a made up story.

Then around the corner came high school, that equally beautiful and horrible place.

Those nights where sleep did not come due to piles of endless work, I wondered what was I doing here? what truly my purpose was?

To graduate, work, sleep and repeat that for the rest of my life?

But

Even when I did get a small taste for depression, it was still something vague to me. In reality all it took was a look around my school for the perfect example.

Freshman scared to death as much as the seniors, some due to starting a new stage and some were ending it. Both not knowing what was ahead for them.

I did experienced sadness, something that came over me because things didn't go the way I wanted. Could be anything from a failed relationship to a bad grade.

But it is not the same.

Depression is a never ending pit, a pit that sometimes takes a lifetime for someone to get out of.

I was broken, broken to hear that people actually go through that. including lovers, friends, and family.

I think everyone is a little deceptive about what depression is, I was until it smacked me right in the face and gave me a bitter taste of what it was capable of.

There is no pain like the pain that is caused when depression takes away your little source of energy and happiness, blackening it, destroying it to the point the last beam of hope disappears right in front of your eyes.

And even then you still don't know the full sensation, you are still not living the full nightmare, you are just living a part of it.

Smiles fade, laughter is as precious as it is impossible to find, you are left alone in that dark abyss with one thing and one thing only, your thoughts.

I used to have a partner that suffered from depression, she made me the happiest anyone could ever make me, but she also introduced something to me that seemed impossible.

From laughter and smiling like a child smiles at candy throughout the entirety of my day, to lonely dark nights in which my thoughts took me to a distant place that was anything but comforting.

She introduced me to depression, however, that did not make me love her any less and in the contrary made me want to fight for something that almost seemed impossible to win.

Depression is a monster that knows how to disguise itself very well. and even though it may seem as something you can take away from another person and make it better, it is not as easy.

I lost the battle.

I lost my source of happiness.

I, for a short period of time, visited that dark place she spend most of her time trapped in. It was as unreal and interesting to a certain point observing how much of your thought is centered on something specific and how much it could hurt you.

It is still not the same.

You will feel pain when you are on and about during your day smiling in the outside to those that happen to cross your path, but in the inside you are yelling, screaming, crying until a sudden tear happens to roll down that smile you show off.

It is pain that holds you back from laughing, smiling, being the person you once used to be.

But it was not the same, and it never will be.

See with sadness it takes some time for you to get better, you can overcome the problem and become a better version of yourself.

With depression, you can fight it all you want and it will still find its way back to you.

Depression is an interesting subject as well as it is sad.

When your sad, all you want is silence, you want to get away from people and focus only on yourself.

When your depressed, you are scared to death of silence. Because silence is when the demons come out, the thoughts. It's when the pit finally comes to a momentary stop, and you look up just to see how far you are from reaching the top. It makes you want to give up right there and then.

There are time depression triumphs and claims a soul that has wondered to close to the abyss, but there are times, times that are golden to the world where a person instead pushed depression to the abyss beating it, never to be seen again.

My condolences to all those who have lost someone to suicide or depression. Maybe we are the broken ones. Maybe we are fooled by life, the internet, the media. Maybe they are the ones that can see what life really is all about. A cycle. A cycle they are not willing to be part of. Maybe they are not as broken as other people think they are.

It still breaks my heart and soul.

-Armando Perez 15 June 2020