The frenemy within

I don’t want to move from this spot on the chair. Curled up in a small ball, I’m afraid I might unravel if I stretch my limbs and move. So I stay still, and wonder… 

Feeling frayed and worn out, would pieces of me begin to loosen and fall into scattered piles? Or would I try and pull the strings taut again into a smile - my usual armor to face the world?

Fighting depression is an exercise in holding onto a tenuous link to joy. One moment I’m giggling. The next it’s as though a tsunami of sadness dropped from the sky and left me drowning in tears. 

Or it can sneak up stealthily, like a spy trying to infiltrate a castle in a land of abundance. Because when life feels so damn good, who would ever expect depression to invade?

​And yet it does, always at the most inopportune moments. 

Like when you just want to enjoy a quiet night in with your partner, but instead find yourself fighting off tears and shaking for no reason.

Or when your friends are all wine drunk and punchy with laughter, yet you feel like you’ve been dropped into a room full of people speaking five different languages.

It’s wild how long you can hide the evidence of depression moving in. As long as you smile and laugh at the right moments, show up to work and say all the correct things, dress to impress and just…keep…going…

Well, then, nobody knows…right?

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