A Prisoner In My Own Mind

A depiction of my own inner battle against depression, from the perspective that it can actually begin to feel normal and even comfortable when suffered for long enough.

A Prisoner In My Own Mind

Often I still experience brief, fleeting moments of passiveness, where I feel nothing but numb. If I was to allow it to last longer than a moment or two, I know I would be at risk of letting myself get sucked back in, settling back into the grey nothingness of the thoughts that used to consume me. And the sad part is that I'm not sure I could ever have the strength again to claw my way back out, yet I still allow myself to have that moment, flirting with the danger, knowing full well the risks but not quite comprehending the reality. I escaped this, I tell myself, yet no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise there will always be a part of me that feels slightly lost without it.

No, I don't miss it, but I do feel strangely empty without it, as though I have parted from an old friend. But this.. this presence was not, and could never be considered a friend. The complete blackness it eventually plunges you into is unbearable and seems inescapable, however that brief no-mans land just passed normality but before transcending into the black does offer a little solace. Like a comfort blanket, assuring you that you don't have to think, to feel, nothing. Just numb. It's oddly addictive; that calm, peaceful block out from the everyday stresses of life, a black out blind to responsibilities. But then something pushes you deeper, and you fall. And this is what I must remember if I am to stop myself tumbling back to where I was at an ever increasing rate, pulled back to that horrifying head-space that made me consider whether I would be better off dead. Relief may be offered in the short-term but the long-lasting effects will ruin me all over again. And I know that if I fall right the way back to that place I will be locked down with chains, iron-clad and stronger than any professionals word, put in place by the darkness of my own mind purely to wrench me away from any normality I have achieved over the past year and alienate me yet again from all that I love.

I could name this darkness, saddle it with the very definite-sounding title of the disorder, but I don't want to grant it this power. If it has a name, it is its own entity and no longer a part of my own being, and I do not currently have the strength to take on anything other than my own mind. If it is left to my imagination as a shortcoming of my mind then I can set about tackling it, self-improvement if you will. However I cannot allow it to gain any more power, any more of a hold over me than it already has - I will not become a prisoner in my own mind again. I will not back down.

By Elise Robertson