My depression didn’t go away. It’s a fact I live with every single day, from the moment I crack my eyelids open to face the screaming dog that’s been sitting on my chest salivating for the last three hours, to when I finally pass out in the wee hours of the morning after playing Skyrim until I’m too tired to think.
I’m not unhappy. No, a little white pill every evening took care of that. Sometimes it’s lavender in colour, or slightly squat, and I chuckle to myself because it’s almost as if the manufacturers are trying to cheer me up. “Look, your little white pill is blue, just like you!”
I’m not unhappy. But I could be.
There’s a door in my mind. It’s bolted and boarded up tight, but I can still hear the snarling, see the tendrils of my monster trying to break through.
My monster. The one I made to match the cruelty of this world.
Because that’s what my depression looks like. A reflection of all the trauma, all the hate I have experienced. Something that even now, a decade later, I am terrified will break through.
But I’m older now. I’m not a child anymore, nor am I the type to take things as they are. As I grew, I learnt many important lessons, one of which was the importance of standing up for myself, even if the whole world is trying to tear me down. So I’m still here. I’m still fighting. I have new weapons now in the form of family and friends, and three wonderful dogs that will literally smother me in slobbery kisses if anything seems amiss. And most importantly, I have my mind.
Because that door used to be an archway, and I’m making progress in bricking it up permanently.
My depression didn’t go away. But I grew strong enough to keep my monster at bay.
Jennifer is a content creator and a SEO Executive.
