Depression

"Depression"

By Rebekah Chui

She's a bit whimsy at first

with her sleepy eyes

comfortable bed

and cloudy skies

it seems self care

to just sleep in

let your thoughts go

comfortable oblivion

and so the laundry piles up

on that one chair

and it would take too much energy

to just wash my hair

'just take it easy'

I think with a sigh

'it's been such a long day'

but, I can't remember why...

she comes like a friend

she seems so forgiving

until one day I looked up

and I'd stopped living

I've been staring

at that blank spot on the wall

and realize at length,

I can't care at all

she promised peace

help with coping

but she only took

the strength to keep hoping

the whimsy is gone

and she's left in her wake

a broken body

and an empty ache

----------------------------

I tried to keep this poem light, because giving voice to the darker thoughts gives them too much power over me.

For as far back as I can remember, I've had thoughts of suicide, active self harm, loathing of self and periods of complete emotional numbness. When I was a kid, I didn't have a name for it, but now I know it's depression.

I think those of us who have lived with depression for our whole lives (or as long as we can remember), it is difficult to separate the mental health disorder from our sense of identity. At the very least that is the case for me. I have never known what a healthy brain feels like, and it seems hopelessly tangled in with my personality.

I tried to convey this idea of a almost unearthly being, who promises help but instead of peace just deepens the wounds that were already present. The idea is that "she" is a separate entity from myself in an attempt to differentiate between who I am, and what depression has done to me.

As the colder fall and winter months are approaching, and here in the pacific northwest it is rainy season and overcast for months on end, I know that my mental health tends to take a hit. I do love the rain, but my brain needs some help to get an uptick of serotonin and dopamine during these seasons. I am effected year round by depression, but my doctor and therapist have helped me to realize that I get additional Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), and it's important to take extra steps to stop myself from spiraling.

So, light therapy every morning and a higher dose of anti-depressants incoming. It's easy for me to feel like a failure and be angry at myself for needing help, but I'm learning to identify those thoughts and feelings and actively contradict them.

Because if my body can't produce it's own serotonin, store bought is fine.