I have secretly suffered with depression since I was twelve years old, and I can honestly say that it is extraordinarily difficult to convey to others just how it feels to be depressed, as few can comprehend the shameful, suppressing, and suffocating emotional blanket that constricts, rather than comforts my heart and soul. They simply do not understand both the physical and emotional implications, as depression overtakes every facet of my existence.  I feel it in my bones, my heart, my soul, in each cautious glance to a fruitless, futile future.  My world is shrouded in blackness, and no matter how much I endeavor to see my life in color, somehow it continues to looks bleak.  It is my hope that with these musings, a semblance of insight, and perhaps a dash of empathy for my dalliance with death’s angel, will be conveyed.  Though my physical scars have faded, darkness surrounds me like a secret, smothering, stifling cape. I walk in a somber, desolate, desperate daze, while trying to break free from this claustrophobic cage from which there is no escape. The pain manifests in every hollow and crevice of my body: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I am my own prisoner confined to the treachery of my mind, and there is no liberation in sight.
The physical effects of depression have always been evident to me.  Each glance in the mirror, each moment of self-reflection sends sharp razor blades gliding across my body and soul.  Scrapes, slices and bruises decorate my hardened shell, matching the abandoned battleground that quakes inside of me.  The air horn of my heart sounds intrusively. Its deafening rhythm pounds in my ears racking my body from within, marking my impending death toll.  My heart has become a cemetery, scattered with the graves of my hopes and dreams lost.  My smile is pulled tight, lips stretched into a thin line. My once porcelain skin is cracked with the effort, but it is my eyes that are the first to go, with irises both empty and stark. The light of hope and innocence shining from within has long since gone dark; there is no spark remaining.  Numbness throbs in my bones; nothingness rushes through my veins.  Death’s warm, comforting arms have gripped me since my first visit with a white coat.  Inevitably, she always releases me much too soon, taunting a denial of sweet release.  But I know that she is never really gone, lingering in the shadows, lurking in the corners, risking a teasing squeeze of my soul.  It never lasts.  Relief is fleeting, and my final resting place drifts further out of reach with each passing moment.  Darkness has consumed my mind, but even so, my heart still holds a fractional sliver of hopeful light, as death wages war with my pitiful hope, the battle never-ending.  It taunts and terrorizes, and stealthily steals my energy, my endurance, my spirit. The angel of darkness may have the upper hand, but I have to believe that someday I will have my own fate gripped securely between my palms.
While depression roars its angry, ugly cry through my body, it has never left my mind a moment of rest. With the first toxic diagnosis, my death certificate was signed with a fatal, blood-inked pen.  I was dead long before I knew the depths of fear and pain.  I have been walking with it hand in hand for what seems an eternity.  I know not the fear of death.  She's had her slender fingers wrapped tenderly around my neck ever since I can remember.  She planted her seed inside of me long before I knew the definition of true pain, or felt its exquisite sting.  There is darkness ebbing from my core, a tenebrous, mangled heart where life once thrived.  I am crumpled up like a discarded thought on a piece of paper with its margins filled with words no one has ever cared to read, pages and pages burnt at the corners and ripped at their bindings.  The ink is smeared with the stains of tears.  Shameful streaks drown the margins and blur my college-ruled lines.  I am sinking in an ocean of tears, destroying myself slowly, softly, as my bones snap from the weight of the world I try to bare on my own. 
Few understand the agony of depression in the teenage world, so blind, so self-absorbed, empathy non-existent.  The stigma of depression is a continuous, grueling, hard fought battle that is never won.  It’s not a real disease, they say.  My unending inner turmoil is minimized and I am therefore again and again trivialized: trapped in a stasis between heaven and hell, a crying, broken girl standing alone. No one looks up. No one notices. No one cares. No one knows. Living in a world of ignorance, of blissful oblivion, feeling lost, worthless, meaningless. Temptation is a cruel mistress, as breath comes easier in the wake of the blade. I can attest to the pain that I feel weighing like an anvil on my chest every time I see those adolescent smiling faces around me.  I wish that I could be normal too, but I am not.  I do not know how to be; I live on the island of misfit toys, broken and forgotten. I am a discarded doll with tear tracks lining my cheeks that belay the measure of my despair.  My gears do not turn the way that they used to; I want to be daddy’s girl and momma’s baby: the perfect student, the compassionate friend, the loyal ally.  Somehow I desperately work to become everything to everyone else but nothing to myself.  There is never anything left for me.  Darkness permeates my soul, spreading black cobweb veins over my worn and tender skin.  I am not my own person anymore. I am nothing. 
I belong to the demon within me.  I belong to the whispers and the stares and the furtive, questioning glances.  Shadows sway my line of sight, as their whispers shroud my focus. I am a slave to my own mind.  These chains restrain the promise of hope, binding me to the inner demons of my tortured soul. These fiendish villains play blindly, recklessly screeching, their footsteps echoing a shrieking roar within my heart. My wrists are shackled raw, lungs gasping for breath, eternally drowning.  Holy water floods these lungs. Bittersweet, tormenting pain is in each unwanted breath.  Poison is in the oxygen that is supposed to save me, but I was never supposed to need saving.  I was supposed to be the golden girl, happy, smart-straight A's and smooth wrists.  This is not the way that things were supposed to be; the wheels are off their axis as my world spins madly with no direction. 
Depression is all consuming, never ending, everlasting, relentless and persistent in its pursuit of me.  As the occasional flicker of light peeks through the darkness, I am so grateful for every moment that I see those bright, glittering rays shining through.  I take small pleasure in the genuine smiles, the laughs, the times that I am free of my inescapable burden; but in truth, the oppressive weight never truly dissipates.  The angel of death hovers close, and I have grown more weary of the kiss she threatens to inflict upon me.  I am not sure that I am ready to follow, but I do not know how to be truly happy.  I do not know how to shake the demon’s claws clinging to my heart while she has made her home inside my soul.  Each day I try, with every false smile, every forced laugh, every time I simply try to live a normal, happy life, to be a mainstream, teenage girl, as I try to believe that I am of consequence.  So, I revel in each triumph over my ever-present ghostly companion.  I will not be beaten by my own demons.  Perhaps, I see a spark, an infinitesimal glimmer of hope as a sliver of dawning light shines quietly through and reveals an unforeseen providence to cope, with a new, yet tenuous twinkle of morning dew. So, I stand slight, yet strong, like an oak with unyielding limbs that refuse to bend, with deep roots that forswear to give-way to the searing wind.