A Multiplying Darkness

A Multiplying Darkness

Depression depletes my spirit of everything creating my unique identity as Kristin. I am a skeleton of the past, a hollow Rembrandt of what I once was. Depression is not a feeling of sadness; it’s a feeling of nothingness, of everything drained from within, of my spirit crushed completely. It’s a paradigm shift where my reality shrinks into the worst darkness of the universe. Bad memories play on repeat while good ones vanish without a trace, & my present perspective begins to behave identically.

“I’ve forgotten the warmth of Home. I’ve lost the touch of love with family. I cannot even see my own reflection through my blind heart. What comes with such a loss?—such a brain malfunction? Pain. Loneliness. I despise my humanness. My memory deceives my own mind. When will it be over? I’ve forgotten comfort, peace… hope, joy… patience, love… I lost the key to my heart. I misplaced the latch to sanity… & so I stand alone” (July 2009; age 16).

The patterns of depression released me at some points throughout the years, but, in the end, it always returned.

“I am overwhelmed with despair, most of which I do not even recognize the root of. It captures me with insane questionings regarding existence, & I wonder how everyone can feel so alone yet trod on” (April 2013; age 20).

Certainly, life holds turmoil & trials. Sadness & some level of depression cannot be avoid at particularly painful times. That’s just how life goes. But clinical depression operates differently. It comes & goes as it pleases, without my permission & without reason.

Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Prozac Nation, described it well: “That’s the thing I want to make clear about depression: It’s got nothing at all to do with life. In the course of life, there is sadness & pain & sorrow, all of which, in their right time & season, are normal—unpleasant, but normal. Depression is an altogether different zone because it involves a complete absence: absence of affect, absence of feeling, absence of response, absence of interest. The pain you feel in the course of a major clinical depression is an attempt on nature’s part (nature, after all, abhors a vacuum) to fill up the empty space. But for all intents & purposes, the deeply depressed are just the walking, waking dead.”

The illogical emptiness pervades all thought, all drive, all definition of identity & existence. My interest & ambition evaporate with the night sky as my spirit shrinks, losing confidence that this will ever end, that surviving all this pain is even worth it.

Hopelessness overwhelms me.

“I wonder if any of them can tell from just looking at me that all I am is the sum total of my pain, a raw woundedness so extreme that it might be terminal. It might be terminal velocity, the speed of the sound of a girl falling down to a place from where she can't be retrieved. What if I am stuck down here for good?” (Elizabeth Wurtzel).

“That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, & it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key” (healthyplace.com).

Am I stuck in this misty haze forever?