Just Floating By

Childhood,  a promise. Innocence is lovely, but exploration forms identity.  I could lay here forever. Maybe for a little while, just a little while, I don’t have to exist. The world can go on without me. I often imagine others lives with my absence and I always come to the same conclusion. I don’t matter, not really. I mean it’s kind that people say I do but in the grand scheme of things, I am nothing. I see myself becoming distant, cold. Isolation is the cure but the side effects linger.

I can’t help but believe that I’ve been dead for years, that all that’s left now is my physical body which is, slowly, rotting away. Unfortunate isn’t it? Forced to live in a world you no longer wish to live in, bound by everything to stay, and having every reason to leave. I mean let’s face it, someone else is running the show. You must understand that if I could choose to be a different way, I would. No one chooses depression. No one wakes up one morning and says “I feel like misery would look great with this lipstick.” No one. The way people talk to me about my recovery process is like it’s just a choice. As if depression were a choice, easy and simple to overcome. But mental illness is so insidious, it makes day to day life almost impossible to bare. No one chooses this.

Some days I’d like to drown everyone, I’d like to watch them feel pain, suffer. All I see is myself drowning, and everyone else breathing. It’s miserable. The black hole that is my life has swallowed me up and the demons in my head will not be silenced. Call me stubborn, sure. But it never stops. I mean the voices, they never stop. Sometimes they whisper in my ear for a minute, sometimes hours, even days. They make the  truth about life simple. I yearn so badly for the truth, but when the truth appears as dark as it has for me, I’m torn. Ignorance has never been a kind option. The voices tell me that I know what I must do, and I know how to make all the pain vanish. The voices are my impulses, they cannot be tamed or controlled. Wild and free, and everywhere I turn, I hear them. On the bathroom floor, crying. The knife is in hand, and I’m ready to do what they all say is wrong. What can I say? I’m being controlled by a force that isn’t human, not close. But it’s me. It’s my voice in my head.

I want it to all stop. I want them to be gone. They kindly refuse, feeding me words of appreciation and longing. They give me hope for a better world. How can I deny them? I know they are manipulating me, and in a way I love to feel vulnerable to them. I can’t help but love it. They tell me what’s real and what I have to do to be somewhere better. Later, of course, I’m full of regret. How can I explain that I’m being tortured by own mind? The cycle of impulse, action and regret never ends, but the emptiness remains. The weight in my chest stays.

I’m always frightened to be wherever I am. To be alone, the voices have all of me, and I am all theirs. To be with others is to put on that clownish smile, while inside I rot. I am nowhere and I am everywhere. I feel all the pain in the world, ultimately feeling nothing at all. I am numb and hardly alive. Being at war with your mind is a battle that can't be won, because no matter what, a piece of you will die.

Viewing the world through the eyes of a child is a promise of love and security for years to come. What you don't realize is that the promise is present and it’s your reality, that the future is what’s truly ominous.  Happiness is strange because you don't realize you have it until you don't anymore. The cards that life deals you are hardly ever in your favor. That's why ignorance is masked by happiness, nostalgia masked by sadness. A constant longing to be innocent again. Yet, when we were young, we wished it away for a future that might be brighter. It’s some sort of cruel joke the universe gets a kick out of.  I feel it constantly, always wishing I were somewhere else. At another time, place, somewhere I might have a chance. I'm never where I'm meant to be. Life is one big wish to be dead.

So I float by, and I observe. It's a lonely way to be but it provides me with insight that happiness could never offer. Am I melancholy? Sure, for a little while, but to  live life like I live it isn't really living at all.  And there is no way out except one.

Author's Note

Hi guys, please give me your honest opinion about this. I deal with major depression disorder and here I'm trying to give a brief version of my encounter of it. It was tough for me to drag all of these ideas out of my scattered head, I can only hope I do them justice. Thanks for the help!

Reviews

[Utsuri]

That's beautiful! Yes it is dark and raw. My only complaint is that you did not write it in prose. That's not a short story at all. It is a poem. A really good one. I am one of those over the top cheerful people that clap and sing and happy dance so it was always hard for me to understand when someone was genuinely depressed. I have been kicked out of memorial services, hospital rooms, peoples homes... all because I was unable to see what was really going on when someone said that they were depressed. Thank you for opening my eyes. I cannot appreciate the gravity of your words the way another person who has dealt with or in currently dealing with depression can, but I can use the insight that I now have to not make an @ss of myself or get cussed out trying to cheer someone up with a cookie... Thank you for this.

[sara]

Wow, thanks for taking the time to write that kind review, and to read my work. I really appreciate it. I'm glad I was able to give you a glimpse into the world of so many living with depression. It's not something people are able to just "get over" because it's entirely disabling. Many people who have not suffered with this disorder are unable to understand this, which is okay. Insight though is a great thing to have. And even though it displays the dark and raw side of existence, it's important to not be ignorant of. Thank you again for the kind review, and I hope you have a lovely day.

[Emily B]

Exquisite. I have lived there for many years. I always find myself back there at odd moments

[dan]

sara, This is such an honest, well-spoken piece about your life and your major depression, I give you a lot of credit for laying it all out here. You and I are kind of in the same church but different pews...I have bipolar disorder and anxiety disorder with features of OCD. I realize what battling the stigmas associated with mental illness feels like, and you're right...it's always dark. So do we blow out the candle and curse the darkness? Yes, that's exactly what we do, but where does that get us?....more darkness, insidious darkness. My doctors tell me to wake up each morning and think of one reason to stay alive that day. Does that work? For me it helps; it doesn't chase the demons away but it holds them off till tomorrow. If you ever want someone to talk to who has some idea of your pain, please message me. take care...dan

[Becky Shukis]

I made an account just to comment okay i love u and ur amazing and artistic lets get pizza. p.s. they wont let me rate it 100000000/100 idk why???? help

[sara]

thank you kind stranger you are amazing let's get pizza later