The Unedited Truth About Slipping Back Into Depression

That familiar feeling is starting inside of me again. Everything is slower, heavier- even the blood pumping through my body feels leaden. Gravity’s pull is so much stronger; it’s difficult to bring my eyes forward. The world around me is pushing, squeezing, holding me inside of an ever-shrinking shell. I’m being muted, being snuffed out like the candle in a jack-o’-lantern as the last of the candy disappears into the clutches of a little phantom, and the wick slowly disintegrates.

The only thing that seems to be growing, to be flourishing, the only thing remaining in my vision, is the gargantuan sense of apathy clouding my life. It wallows and festers in the dark places of my heart, riding along the beads of lead that are traveling with my blood cells. As my body slows, the apathy takes root and starts to expand, spreading like a fungus that strangles out any struggling force from my old self still lingering in the depths of my decaying body.

I’m starting to not care again.

It’s a physical sensation, the loss of having feelings. It’s a disease that makes your entire being want to shut down, give up, go to sleep, and remain that way forever. It’s so close and real, it’d be tangible if you actually cared enough to reach out and touch it. It consumes you, and often it becomes you, like some parasitic alien that invades your body and makes its home there.

Sometimes, it starts with boredom. You’ve seen it all, nothing’s new, nothing’s great. Other times, it starts with a wound, whether emotional or physical; a piece of you has been removed and the rest of your body scrambles and panics trying to live without it. Then, slowly, slowly, your insides begin to congeal. Everything starts slowing down, and each cell in your body begins to wonder why it even has to do its job anyway- what’s the point? As your cells protest, your mind protests too. What’s wrong with a little more sleep? Or a lot more, for that matter? Why does it matter? It doesn’t really, does it?

As the soporific siren sings her song, you feel your apathy growing and growing. The only thing that makes sense anymore is the feeling of your head gently resting against your pillow, and the soft caress of the old, smelly sheets that you just can’t quite bring yourself to wash. Maybe you don’t want to wash them, or maybe you’re physically unable to. Either way, the point is moot because you’ve stopped caring long before then. All that matters is the seductive call of sleep.

I know this feeling so well, this sensation of gelatin squeezing through my veins, moving so pathetically that I wonder how I even have the strength to grasp a pen in my feeble hand. It’s like a screen is slowly covering my vision, dampening my senses and lulling me to a place of toxic contentment. It’s difficult to see clearly, it’s difficult to move- so, why is it that I’m trying to again?

I suppose I would try to remember if I had the agility to, but I’m just so damn tired that I don’t really care anymore.