Depression in All Its Glory

Well, folks. It's official. It's diagnosed. It's incredibly unsurprising.

I have major depression.

I mean, it's not like I was ever not depressed. At least, not since I was nine. Seeing as I was nine, I don't remember much before that, so in essence I was never not depressed.

Although I'm not nearly as eloquent in pictures as my good compadres Matthew and Allie (authors of The Oatmeal and Hyperbole and a Half, respectively), I can try to paint a picture of words for you, my faithful lack of readers. Here goes:


no no no      no no no no   no no no   no no no     no no no no     no no        no no      no     no no   no no  no
no       no   no             no      no  no      no   no             no      no   no     no    no   no     no no   n  no
no        no  no no no      no no no   no no no     no no no          no           no        no    no     no no   o no
no        no  no no no      no          no     no    no no no             no           no     no    no     no
no       no   no             no          no      no   no             no     no    no     no    no    no     no
no no no      no no no no  no          no       no  no no no no     no  no       no no      no      no no

I didn't have room for the end. I digress. Besides, I don't really know Matthew or Allie. Like, at all.

Depression has been compared to a black dog, or a black cloud. To me, though, it's more like a really heavy backpack you have to carry all of the time. Sometimes you can feel light with it, say, after a great meal or a good rest or a fantabulous book, even if you still are a bit sweaty from the load. (Eew, forget about the sweat park, that's gross.) After a long day, though, or a fight, or an injury, holding up this stupid bag of bricks or whatever is in there anyway gets to be tedious. No, more than tedious. Hellish. You see, people say things to you like, "Oh, why don't you just take it off for a while," or "I'm sure it will naturally get lighter on its own". This is quite annoying. And their words somehow gain weight and travel into this awkward black hole that is your backpack, and all of your negative thoughts weigh you down, until eventually you are just a mess.

At this point you try to pry the bag off, but it's stuck to your back with your sweat, tears, and even blood. It will not fucking come off. Then you just dissolve in a heap and go into a really awful downward spiral of self-hatred, and self-pity for the self-hatred, and self-hatred for the self-pity, and so on and so forth.

So, I have to get back to my homework (oh god the backpack analogy it's real), but I will say this:

I'm not going anywhere. For now. Just don't push me, or one of us is gonna get smacked. (No, seriously, I have no idea who. Don't look at me like that.)

Adios, suckers.