A Letter to My Depression

Hi there, I would tell you, yet again, to leave me alone - but I know you won't listen to me. You are a rude, and intolerable, houseguest and I am doing everything in my power to remove you from my home, my heart, and my life. I am pretty sure that you are well aware of what you have taken away from me - and why I want you to leave. As a kid, you took away my normal childhood. Becoming my house-mate when I was only 5 or 6, you began sucking the life out of my reality. I was already pretty well into the development of my Autism and I really didn't need to also become depressed and angry. My parents could not get me to finish testing for my developmental delays, so I was never diagnosed. With my frustrations and confusions mounting up on me, it was so easy for you to find your way into me and into everything I did. While I was maturing - so were you. I became more, and more unstable - socially inept. Between a lack of productive therapy, serious developmental delays - and you... I was helpless but to become an almost completely unmanageable child, an angry and out-of-control teen, and a very lost and confused adult. I was twenty before I found someone I could trust - who had the answers I needed. By then you, and your bedmates, had moved in and made your nest in my soul. I no longer remembered how it felt to not be completely locked inside myself. You made me feel heavy, and sick - I felt totally useless and unwanted. Anxiety had moved in as well, and I was so scared of the world that I had trouble finding a therapist or any kind of help. Then the state took my one good thing - the one thing making me start to get well again - my newborn son. I lost it. You, and your friends, embraced me ever more tightly than before. I became totally paranoid of anyone who asked me to sign a release to share information about me. I blew out of therapists faster than ever before, I began to cut myself more regularly than ever before, I turned to drinking and smoking pot to numb everything I was going through. No matter how hard I tried to drown you - you wouldn't shut up. There seemed no way out of the black hole that you - and your friends - created. I was too afraid of the world to seek help reliably, too depressed to handle most basic tasks, and so lost in a sensory overload that I collapsed within myself and became someone I couldn't recognise as me. Finally, I got help, real help. I was 23 years old. I had gotten divorced and had another child not living with me anymore - this time with her father. It was a kind heart that pushed me in the right direction. I fell in love and it was - and still is - amazing. I had someone driving hard on my behalf, advocating for me and helping me get going again. He didn't care that I was broken - only that I had the tools to get better. So, after ten years and two dozen therapists, I was getting good healing help. I am getting stronger now and - most days - you do not sleep in my bed anymore. You still take a lot away from me, and your bedmates still get to me on occasion; but I am in the process of making you leave me alone for once. I am aware that this is a long and hard road. But, it is my road, and I will walk it. Peace, Love, and Bulletproof Marshmallows Mandey T