depression

I think most people view depression as a feeling much like "love", "anger", "fear". But depression is not an emotion. It's an illness. It's certainly one thing to feel a little "down" about things from time to time. Everyone feels that, but again that is an emotion. Depression is waking up wanting to have a great day and not being able to force oneself to ignore the empty feeling within. It is the knowing you are worthy but feeling inadequate. It is the wanting to walk straight towards a goal but dragging one foot in front of the other by sheer will only to learn you have been tripping all along. It is fighting to smile on days when you want to sleep. It is knowing it's all in your mind but not having the mental power to acknowledge it. It's wanting to be all things but accomplishing nothing. It's talking oneself into taking a shower...sometimes for hours even though one knows it will make you feel better. It is the want to isolate oneself from possible triggers that will cause more pain and anxiousness, but never knowing just what it is that one must avoid. It's wanting to be loved enough that one will not ever feel that way again but knowing that it has to come from within to truly matter and heal. It's knowing but suffering despite knowing. It's pain despite being a happy person by nature. It's a cloud that's a chemical imbalance, a mystery, an enemy an old friend. Depression is my other arm tied behind my back stopping me from skipping. Depression is an invisible rash that itches, but no one else can see its reality. It's a menace, a torturer...a friend, a foe. Depression is creativity, emotional oneness. It's all things bad and some things good. It becomes one with us until it is us and then it strangles the best parts of us and spits back something still beautiful and complex. It is our flesh, our breath, sometimes just the exhale, but so entangled with our motions that to deny it would be to stop being, and breathing. Depression is not an emotion for those inflicted, but a feeling for those that are well. Depression is my lover, my friend, my shadow, and my soul. Depression is my heart ripped in two, my ache, and inner vacancy. Depression is a part of me no one sees, but everyone accepts to be all in my head. It's me and it's not...it's here but never caught. Depression is my drink of choice if I could pick a bottle. But I'm all too often drunk without choosing or planning. Depression is rape of serenity and most often other's see it as a word, a torch, a medal we carry to emblazon an excuse for all that we lack, but those are the ones that walk without ever looking over a shoulder, because depression's not their un-trustable friend making them always look back.