To: My Depression

From: The Body Of Whom You Are Occupying

Yesterday, I spent my day mourning the loss of my sense of self. I spent hours in bed, dreaming up ways to end it all. I spent countless hours begging myself to hold on, telling myself that "if I just hang on a for a little bit longer, everything will change."

Yesterday, I tossed and turned in bed from the fear of having to get up again the next day. I choked down countless emotions and stuffed them away in an internal treasure chest of the emotions I didn't allow myself to ever feel.

Yesterday, one emotion stood proudly and beat on the walls of my brain, knocking with hands so heavy they could crush you without hesitating. That emotion was anger.

Yesterday, I was angry with myself and my inability to control my own thoughts, my inability to be the person everyone so badly wanted me to be and my inability to seek help for what I was feeling.

Yesterday, I laid in bed with every last one of my fears and I listened carefully and longingly to the words they spoke to me. I listened intently to the way every syllable clung to my body like chains.

Today, I heard those chains crash to the floor as I finally rose from my tired bed of grievances. Every chain slid to the floor beneath my feet and laid motionless from their dead memories.

Today, I wrote a letter to every emotion I ever neglected and I apologized to them for allowing fear, grief and despair to cloud them. I wrote a letter to my mother, my best friend and my girlfriend. I apologized for not being authentic, for allowing the voice in my head to cloud my confidence. I apologized for taking advantage of their pity and using it as fuel for my self-destruction.

Today, when my mother kicked me out of my family home and cut off every last tie I had with my family, I looked you in your eyes and I saw you for who really are, my sweet seductress. I realized that I continuously allowed myself to crawl back into your cold arms because they were the only place I ever knew to be home, the only place I ever allowed to be home.

Today, when I walked away from my mother, tears cascading down her cheekbones, I took back what is, and has always been rightfully mine, my happiness.

Today, I realized that I can no longer allow you to control me. Because if I can't love myself, then I sure as hell can't expect anyone else to love me.

Tomorrow will be kinder.

Tomorrow, I will rise again. My body will release every emotion I deprived myself of, and I will swim in a pool of my own afflictions.

Tomorrow, I will suture the wounds shut with every last thread of strength I have left in my being. I will suture these inflicted wounds and I will do everything in my power to ensure they heal shut.

Tomorrow, I will no longer recognize the sound of your bitter voice coinciding right next to mine. I will find my own. I will use it.

Tomorrow, you will be a distant memory buried underneath the floorboards of this weathered house that is my body.

Tomorrow, I will plead guilty to murder. Because I let you kill who I once was.

Tomorrow will exist for me.

This is not the end for me. This is not the end for who I am meant to be. I will grow into the person I am meant to be regardless of all the times you told me I couldn't. I will be the person I am meant to be, through self-love, devotion, and trust in myself. I am no longer backing down. I'm tired of living a life big enough for two when you, my depression, are not a part of my identity.

You are a reflection of all the pain that has been inflicted upon me.

I, along with millions of others, will fight for my tomorrow.