"SLIPPING INTO DARK"

The sun begins to set over my own personal day. It doesn’t matter what time it is. I can feel it begin to go down on me and I have no way of holding it up or stopping my light from dimming and going very, very dark.
 
There is water at my feet that wasn’t there a second ago. The water is moving, and swirling silently, slowly. It doesn’t stop, and I know soon what will happen. I’ve been there before.
 
The water rises, while at the same time, my sun descends, the light dims as the swirling water begins to engulf me. To my knees, my waist, my belly.
 
Eventually, the sun and the water will touch, and all the colors will disappear.

It’s getting darker now, as the water engulfs my chest and my neck, making me wish I could do something, anything, to stop it, to stay afloat just a little longer. But I know I’m going under. It’s just time. Just like the last time, and the time before that.
 
Soon, the water touches my nose, and my eyes see the surface of the water stretching out in front of me forever, while the sun touches the smooth waves that roll past.
 
In this moment, I know I’ll survive this moment, but there is a dark corner of me somewhere inside that questions that. Will it be like every other time, or will the dark become so dark, that I can’t get out. That I drown in the black abyss engulfing me.
 
I don’t know. All I can do is hope, but really, in this moment, I can only let it be.
 
The water is now just above my head, the sun has set, and there is just a small amount of light coming through the surface that I can sense. Things are slower now. Duller. The sounds are lower, quieter, and those that are not, seem elsewhere. I can hear my heartbeat.
 
I’m floating now. Disconnected. But the water still rises, and my sun still sets, and the light fades deeper into black around me.
 
The water rises, and I begin to sink. As I descend into a much murkier darkness, my thoughts become more intrusive, darker. These are the thoughts I don’t want to think. These are the thoughts that aren’t me but are me. These are the thoughts that scare me, and at the same time, give me a quiet, dark comfort in knowing I have a solution.
 
As I descend deeper into the black, as I become more disconnected from the world outside me, and as my thoughts become more intrusive and unwanted, my feet touch a murky, soft, yielding bottom, softly, slowly pulling me in, my feet, my ankles, my calves. It is so difficult to move. It is so difficult to accomplish anything without an exhausting, herculean effort. My air is towards its’ end, making every movement an effort.
 
There is nothing for me anymore. Nothing in my life has meaning. Nothing I do matters. In these moments, I am hopeless, for as long as I remember, and as long as I foresee. There is no point to anything.
 
I can’t eat, I won’t eat, I have no interest in eating. I have no interest in anything. I want to sleep, but I don’t want to sleep. I am numb to everything around me, yet at times, I am hyper aware, hypersensitive.
 
I can’t stop my thoughts. There is nothing left for me. I can’t move, and I’ve run out of strength and effort and will. The world around me quiets, and is so, so dark. And the thoughts come forth. Of death, of love, of being gone. Not of how my life will end, but what the world around me, those who care, those who love me, what my world would be like if I should just let go. I think there are those that would miss me. But life would be so much simpler for them.
 
Author’s Note: Everyone has their own journey into depression. It certainly isn’t always the same. This is a description of what it’s like to know and understand you’re sliding into the dark depths of depression, not be able to do anything to stop it, and how crippling it is. It has been confirmed by those who have reviewed it thus far, as being an accurate description of one’s slide into depression, even though it is still different for everyone.
 
I wanted to try to capture and represent these feelings well, for two reasons.
1 – It’s important for those going through this, about to go through this, or have depression as a part of their lives, to know they’re not alone.
2 – For those of us who don’t go through depression, and don’t have depression as a part of our lives, it’s important for us to have an understanding of what the other half goes through. 

Share