Depression

The one topic explicitly  requested and the hardest one to write about.

Rather it's one of the easiest to write about, but one of the hardest to say anything new. That's the things about it. It's repetitive. It always has the same message of "you suck" no matter what the actual thoughts are.

It could be anything, really. Feelings of inadequacy are rampant for someone in my industry having the lack of formal education I do, and for someone 47 and single like I am, or someone with a child suffering through that same darkness ... it's constantly repeating its somber soliloquy.

I've dealt with it many ways and at many times. I have embraced the darkness and externalized the feelings in my appearance and demeanor.  I have embraced the darkness and rage and lashed out at everyone and everything. I have fought tooth and nail against the darkness and been left shattered by it. It's tried to kill me more times than I can count and nearly succeeded more than once. It's talking to me even now, telling me that I am fooling myself in thinking this writing has any value. That it's just hubris and I should just give it up. I have more than a couple of times.

Depression lies in the truths it tells. It exaggerates our fears and holds up only the worst of ourselves,  ignoring the good to accentuate the bad, and I let it. It's not the good I need to improve, and it's not the good I need to change, it's the bad. The things that hold me back from improvement are the very things I need to know about the most, and depression tells me all about them.

Because of depression, I know my weakness. Because of depression,  I know my inner arguments.
Because of depression, I am stronger.

Except when I'm not. It's a terrible process, requiring I face that darkness and fight. I have to feel that self loathing and scream in its face. I have to reveal the lies to find the grains of truth it's hiding. That hurts. It's draining. It's fairly constant and it always threatens to drag me down and some day I might lose.

But for now, I choose. Me. I can continue; I will continue. Not today, death. Not today.