Every day you feel tired. A drowsy fog wraps itself around your body. In physical form you imagine it to be a deep grey, smelling of stale cigarettes and solidified tears and it coils around your neck, your ankles, seeping in and out of your body. You can’t move, you're wading through murky water and it’s inescapable and you're drowning.
Every day you feel sad. Not a sadness that comes with disappointment or bad news or any other emotional stab you know you can overcome. No this sadness is darker and it’s bottomless and it involves realizing you will never feel the way you used to, a devastating realization, like a coma patient waking up to learn that he will never be able to walk again. You will never smile again, or tell a joke or enjoy someone else’s company. It’s just you and the gaping hole where a different life used to be.
You stop taking care of yourself, you don’t shower because it won’t make you feel any different. You don’t eat because you still feel the same afterwards. Nothing will satisfy you; everything tastes like rubber. Basic human necessities become futile chores that take up too much effort. So you sit in your own filth waiting and wading from sleep to sleeplessness, eventually forgetting the difference between the two.
You drift in and out of dusty rooms like a distant relative at a funeral, lurking behind the trees, staring at an unrecognizable corpse, trying to remember who it is you are mourning but not being close enough to see.
Comments
icetea | June 1, 2010 - 14:03
Really good, very powerful.
insertponceyfre... | June 1, 2010 - 16:03
Maggy I feel the same way as icetea. It's a really well written description of deep depression. However, in places it's a little confusing because of thw way you use "I" and "you". For instance, in the last paragraph:
I drift through the rooms of my house like a distant relative at a funeral, lurking behind the trees, staring at an unrecognizable corpse, trying to remember who it is you are mourning for but not being close enough to see.
I drift etc....trying to remember who it is you are mourning - can you see how it could sound as if you're referring to two different people? And you aren't are you - only one. It might read better if you go through it and make this clearer
maggyvaneijk | June 1, 2010 - 17:39
thanks for your comments!
I completely agree with you, I wrote it quite quickly this morning so I'll give it a revise now, thanks.
MistakenMagic | June 1, 2010 - 18:13
You have such a talent for explaining and expressing such difficult emotions, Maggy. I really love the images in the final paragraph. Well done!
Magic xxx
maggyvaneijk | June 1, 2010 - 18:19
thank you so much Magic, coming from you that's a real compliment
insertponceyfre... | June 1, 2010 - 18:22
that sounds much better! One last thing - I don't think you mourn for someone - you just mourn them.
maggyvaneijk | June 1, 2010 - 18:23
I knew it! I spent about half an hour pondering that sentence, thanks for clearing that up
Silver Spun Sand | June 1, 2010 - 18:33
Maggy - as has been said, you find a way to express those sometimes 'dark' places, that most of us have experienced, to a lesser or greater degree, at some time in our lives.
Well done on the more than deserved cherry.
Tina
maggyvaneijk | June 1, 2010 - 18:36
thanks as always for your kind words Tina
Dynamaso | June 2, 2010 - 05:27
Heavy, dark and very well written. I wrote something similar some time ago but it was nowhere near as good or succinct as this.