Depression Lies

You’re a hack.

You can’t write.

You’re a college dropout, a factory working white baby boomer with no perspective.

Just sit in that chair, don’t move, don’t do anything. Seriously, what’s the point?

Feeling bad? Feeling sad? You should. Your life is a mess. You’ve messed up everything you’ve touched. Just sit there, and try not to mess up anything else.

I can hear what you’re thinking. You think if you can just get up and go outside, exercise, pull some clean air into your lungs, that this will make a difference. You think it will make you feel better.

It won’t.

You think if you listen to some music, go for a drive, hit the beach, splash in the waves with your dog, that I’ll go away. You think if you get together with family and friends, laugh over a good meal, watch a sunset or sing around a campfire, that I’ll forget about you.

I won’t.

I’ll be there for everything.

When your first grandchild is born, I’ll be there.

When your stupid little blog gets thousands of views, it won’t matter. I’ll be there. I’ll be there to feed you the self doubt that comes with criticism, and make you wonder if writing honestly is worth the grief and the pain.

I’ll be there to anger you when you get confused about life, about what it all means.

I will make you doubt and reject God.

You try to pray me away, but I’m not going anywhere. You can hear me whispering in your ear while you pray, telling you it’s not going to matter, that nothing you do matters at all.

I will lie to you. All day, all month, all year. I will steal your joy.

You think you can make me go away by talking to someone, telling them about your childhood and your family and your upbringing and your values. They can’t help you. They’ll just prescribe you drugs that will make you feel tired and lethargic, like you’re living life underwater.

They don’t know you. I do.

You can’t prescribe me away. You can’t pray me away. You can’t talk me away. You can’t even write me away.

Because you’re a hack.

Even as you write this, trying to expose me, I will eat at you, telling you nobody will understand, nobody will get it, that people will think you are morose and depressing. I’ll whisper to you that you should get over it, that you need to grab those bootstraps and pull yourself up and get on with your life.

You can write about cancer, the disease that is trying to kill you, but leave me alone. If you pull me into the light, I will just fight harder, my whispers will become shouts, and I will do everything I can to bring you down.

Because I’m trying to kill you too. Not with tumors, not with bad cells, and not with the pain and sickness of treatments. I’m trying to kill you with bad thoughts, with ugly feelings, and with a sense of dread that spreads over your whole body faster than any cancer can metastasize.

I’m stronger than any cancer.

And I’m sure as hell stronger than you.