Black Dog

BLACK DOG

Existence with depression is dark and desperate. It clouds your
judgment and changes the perception of people and life. You live in a
constant turmoil of despair, pain and hopelessness. There seems to be
no way out. No release of the grip it has over you. It holds you tight,
drawing you into a web of selfishness and deceit. It becomes harder to
think straight, to see good. It eats into your confidence and self
esteem. Stripping away the barriers, revealing the vulnerable parts of
you. It attacks unmercifully.

What I feel now is indescribable. I feel at a loss. I'm confused and
unable to think straight. I don't want to feel this pain and yet I
cannot control it. I feel as if it isn't me. I'm in another world.
Hardly functioning. Not knowing where help is coming from if it is
indeed coming. My mind is detached from my body. I want to cry. I want
to sleep. To shut out the pain and this feeling of despair. I'm angry
and saddened. I hate life.

Why is this happening to me? Do I deserve this? Maybe in a way I do.
It's a punishment. Or that's what it seems like. You've done wrong. No
one else feels like this. You feel lonely, isolated. People seem to
draw away from you. They lose patience. They don't seem to understand
what you feel. What must you do to make them understand the torment you
go through to exist? That's all you do. You don't live, you exist. You
are a shadow of your former self.

Your body is full of drugs to help you. They work only sometimes. The
rest is hell, pure hell. You want to sleep. The only escape you have.
You can leave the pain behind. For a time you are at peace and free.
You want to stay there. The pain floods back when you wake. There's no
way to release the feelings you have inside. They want to get out. Your
waking moments are filled with the desire to sleep or die. Both ways
out of your prison. It seems the best way to be. There is no other
option. There is no ending of this existence. There is no hope for you
to hang on to. You can't believe that things can improve. The years
have gone by with no let up of this relentless illness. It's never
seen, never noticed. You are not believed.

Paranoia becomes the norm. What others say you are and what you come to
believe. Deeper you sink into the pit of despair. All these emotions
that run round your head. There doesn't seem any control. They come and
go in varying degrees, taking up your time, so you have no thought for
anything else. A part of you wants to fight, to win, to stay alive.
Steps to improve are slow and long. So what keeps you going? It's hard
to imagine that there is anything important for you to fight for. It
doesn't seem enough to continue with these scars. You are the same
person underneath but it's hidden by cynicism. Contempt for life.

Everything seems too hard for you to do. To get up and dressed is an
accomplishment in itself. To do what comes natural to most is laborious
and unmanageable. It easier to give in and crawl back to the refuge of
sleep. Time becomes unreal. It's lost in the depths of oblivion. Deep
down you know that your life is not spent alone. That others exist that
need you, your love, your attention. You feel guilt. Undeniable guilt.
The enormity of the pressure that you suffer is vast. The logic that
you need to control this pressure has gone. It has been replaced by
defeat and acceptance. Acceptance of your fate that is your life. To be
alive but away from your body. Someone who can longer think or respond
in the normal way.

So what emotions do you feel? How strong are they? Anger is strong, so
strong to me. It saves the feeling of hurt that lies behind it. It
protects me from further harm. Shielding me. It's so damaging though.
Out of control it eats away at you. Distorting your view like
depression only worse. You can no longer forgive, or forget. Both are
things that are with you. All the time. The past dominates your being.
It moulds you to what you are today. It changes your personality.
People no longer recognize you.