My Depression Is A Clenched Fist Around My Heart

Depression is something that is different for everyone. It's a form of illness that affects everyone differently, but those that it does affect can speak endlessly about the dreaded lifestyle one leads when they suffer from it.

Something that I don't think a lot of people know about depression, even the most chronic, severe forms of it, is that it isn't necessarily constant. Some days, you can wake up and feel fairly normal. You can go about your day normally, following your routines, and not once feel the gray sluggishness drag you down.

Yet, other days, you can wake up, and the whole world seems significantly more daunting, less inviting, and everything feels like it has a gray tint to it all, like a thin layer of dust. You won't want to do anything except sit in bed and think and maybe cry and contemplate your self-worth. You won't even be able to get out of bed or take a shower. You'll use the bathroom, maybe, but that's as good as it will get.

And then the next day, you can feel somewhere in between the two extremes.

Depression is amorphous and almost intangible. It cannot be pinned down as any one thing and no single description can fully depict it in all its ugly forms.

For some, depression is a slight sadness that comes and goes with stress and other outside factors. For some, depression is a never-ending battle of wanting to get out of bed but not having the emotional strength to do so. For some, depression is a conquerable challenge that no longer poses a threat to their everyday happiness or productivity.

For me, depression is a fist clenched around my heart, making me feel each beat as it pumps the blood through my veins. It is a blanket of sadness thrown over me at random times, one that is almost too heavy to lift some days and one that is as thin, transparent as rice paper on other days. For me, depression seems to dwindle and be manageable, until one day I wake up and feel the fist wrapped around my heart yet again.

I have yet to see a day where I can no longer remove the blanket or uncurl the fingers holding me hostage, but this is a practice that took me years to perfect, and isn't a short process, no matter how many times I do it.

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that learning to cope with depression can take time, and honestly, it may be something you always struggle to cope with, even when you've been facing it head on for more years than you can count. There is no simple answer or simple cure, nor do any of the possible answers/cures apply to everyone with depression. You just have to keep testing and trying until one day, you find the way out from under the blanket.