Confessions

In last night's Doctor Who, the Doctor escaped from a prison. His escape, by punching against a wall (4x stronger than diamond) for literally millions of years, is an almost perfect metaphor for how to climb out of the pit of depression.

It take millions of punches, painful and sometimes traumatic punches, to get yourself out. There is no quick fix, not even pills. I am not fixed from being on more of a plateau. The plateau, the numbness, allows me to access a smidgen more of the person I should be, the person I normally am. But sometimes, that connection fails. 

Sometimes, you have to step outside and cry because your mask of happiness and competence is at risk of crumbling. You phone your mum because you're having vivid and violent imaginations of falling from rooftops. 

Your legs feel like lead. And then they feel like jelly.

And your heart turns to stone. Then it disintegrates like ash. 

All the while your mind just spins.

It makes everything possible and uncertain at the same time. 

It makes recovery possible and uncertain at the same time.

It makes life amazing and soul-destroying at the same time.

It makes you want to live, and makes you want to die, at the same time.

It makes no sense. It makes it impossible to go forward, and impossible to go back.

It works very hard to eradicate your future.

It works very hard to eradicate the very essence of who you are.

The only thing you can do, in the face of something that painfully makes no sense working very hard to destroy you, is to painfully work very hard to destroy it back. 

But this is not a war. You cannot destroy depression with hate.

You can only destroy it with love.