Patiently waiting

Depression is the monster that hides under the be or in the closet.  No one else can see it, but you know that it is there - waiting for an unguarded moment to jump out and devour you.

It waits for that one precise moment, like when you've lost your job because the care died and you couldn't find the money to get it fix and now your stressed out and worried about how you're going to make the rent.  That moment when you start to feel like a worthless failure is when Depression will reach out and grab you, sinking its' claws as deeply as it can

Or maybe it will be when a relationship has gone bad and now  you feel frightened and alone even though you laugh about finally "being free".  Depression will sneak in like a cat sneaking up on the poor oblivious mouse and it will sink its' ragged teeth deep into your soul.

You'll do things you would never have believed you would do.  You'll fill your bed with strangers just so you feel wanted...loved....needed.  But it's a lie, you know you are degrading yourself and you are ashamed.

And Depression sinks those poisonous fangs a little deeper.

You'll stay in bed and not want to get up.  What's to get up for anyway?  You have no job, no car, no one that cares.  Right?

No, that isn't right, but the poison Depression has infected you with causes you to believe that there is NOTHING worth getting up for.

Maybe  you'l go to the bars and drink, have a "good" time.  Hook up with that ex-boyfriend because he "still feels something" for you and you are so desperate to FEEL anything that you believe him.

And those horrible poisonous claws of Depression dig just a little deeper into your soul.  Its' poison slowly blotting out everything but the pain.

If you've never suffered from severe depression, you probably have no idea what I am talking about, you probably think I'm just being dramatic.  I'm not.  If you've never suffered from severe depression you probably think it's easy to "shake it off" and go on  because everyone has disappointments in life, every one has things go wrong, it's just a fact of life.  Yes, everyone does have disappointments in life and things go wrong for us all, but for someone that suffers from depression it's not a matter of "shaking it off", it's a matter of brain chemistry.

Severe depression, clinical depression, is an ILLNESS.  It is NOT something to be ignored or belittled.  People who have been there, people that are STILL there know they can't just "get over it", they know the cruel things people think and say.  They know the stigma of the words "mental health issues".  The general public WILL NOT let them forget.

So while dealing with emotions you cannot control, with brain chemistry that is out of balance, with meds that make you tired and/or makes food taste like cardboard, meds that make you sleep or else shoot you into mania, while dealing with all of that you have to deal with people who do not understand and won't be bothered to educate themselves.

And the monster under the bed grows stronger.