An overwhelming, irrevocable despair.

I'm in a black hole and I'm sinking further down but I can't get out of it. The worse part is I don't even want to.

Sometimes it's a different kind of despair. It's when it's not despair at all. I don't have any emotion, I am unfeeling. Whether you realise it or not you are feeling something right now even if you're not particularly happy or sad.

Then I can't even feel despair over my lack of 'feeling' which takes away the human in me.

To feel human I search for ways to feel. The only times I truly feel alive is when I am exercising or starving or having sex. I can now see how easily people get into drugs and alcohol. They allow you to feel when you've lost all feeling.


It has given me perspective.

What do I do when I'm overcome with bouts of depression? I remind myself of the beauty of the world and how there's still so much to see. I look at pictures of landscapes or animals and their beauty is enough to - not make me smile - but feel hope. I think about the people I am yet to meet, the friends I haven't made yet or the food I haven't tried yet. And I push.

I turn this pain into passion. I never thought I'd hear myself say this but one upside of having bouts of depression is my creativity. With what feels like the death of my happiness I want to give birth to something and I do this by consuming myself in a painting or some writing. I go away at it until my fingers are hurting. 

But there are times where it gets so bad I am unable to get up, even lifting my hand is too much effort. One thing that not many people understand is that depression can be just as crippling as having no arms and legs. You cannot simply 'get up'.

My mantra for these times is 'keep on keeping on' and when I can't it's 'trust the process'. I let these feelings come, let them overwhelm me. Allow them to stop me getting up to get ready for that dinner out with my friends. I've learnt that it will pass like the storm.

Sometimes my brother will walk into the room without knocking and it will shake me out of my reverie and force me to pretend to look okay. In the midst of helping him unscrew a bottle I forget what I was feeling. All of a sudden I'm like 'hang on I was feeling something' and then it won't carry on. Other times I look for rooms to run into to purge the despair until I've exhausted myself. That for me is what depression feels like.