Where you wake up and a happy song is playing in your head and you hope that everything will be okay, only to realize it's not. I occasionally suffer from depression, not as bad as it was a few years ago when I spent 5+ years wallowing in anger, sadness, thoughts of death (yes, even my own) and just utter and complete darkness. It was painful, soul wrenching, exhausting and just damn sad.



Ever since the day I took control of my depression, I've had flare ups. Days where I was just angry, sad, frustrated and lacked concentration. This is one of those days. These normally happen when I stress too much and don't take care of myself. Lately I've been doing too much stress, the last few days have just accelerated things.



Right now I'm listening to Darkest Days by Stabbing Westward. If I'm listening to that particular CD and not using it for a scene in a book, then it's gotten very not happy for me. Usually I'm at the point where I shut out the world and go wallow. Lately I've noticed that I've had a hard time delving into writing like I use too. That should have been the first sign to me that something was wrong, but hindsight is twenty-twenty, right? *sigh*



I should have seen the flare up about to occur and tried to stave it off. How I have no idea. Some people say exercises can help, vitamins too. But the thing is depression is in the mind, those little energy mood enhancers don't stave off the thoughts now do they? No, they don't. They take care of the body aspect, make you feel good and full of energy.



I've been telling myself for the past two weeks things will get better. Ha, look where I am now. *sigh* When depression hits, it's hard to see the forest through the tress. Hard to see the happiness when all around you it just feels like all the happiness you try to hang on to drifts away or just gets snatched away.



One of the things I had to force myself to learn, is that happiness is out there, you just have to look really hard for it. Tiring, I know. It's like why the hell do I have to look for it, it should find me damnit. lol. Not that easy. With depression, happiness is so beyond reach it's like the drifting last breaths of a dream, you know the part where you wake up and try to hang onto a really good dream only to have it float away and then a few minutes later you can't even remember it. It's like that. Depression is hard to move, hard to breath, hard to think through the haze, you're crawling, not walking through muck and it gets harder and harder to do anything. You just want to sit there and let it take you.



You don't want to fight any more. It's just too hard, it's easier to just let the depression win. It's not like any one cares or will miss you right? That the way I use to think. And trust me, it was hard to break that line of thought. Hard to actually think that people could care if you weren't there anymore.



Luckily I've moved on from that way of thinking. But the thoughts sometimes pop up. Depression will always be with me. But no matter how bad it gets I won't let it take me back to where I was during that 5+ yrs I had in my own personal hell.



Crap, I've brought down the room. All I can tell you is, life is hard and sometimes the shit keeps flying at you but if you can find something happy, a little hope, it can go a long way. I know, I was there.



Selena