Some feelings are like old familiar friends. Depression is like that for me. When Iβm not in it, I donβt remember it. I remember itβs bad. I remember the darkness, but itβs different to feel it again. Itβs the difference between remembering what a room looks like and actually walking through the door. Being inside it again. Feeling it when the episode starts. It can be slow at the start. An intrusive thought βI donβt wanna be hereβ but then itβs gone. You bat it way like a fly or a bad smell. When it hits you fully though, when youβre really in it, itβs everything. Itβs who you are, youβre nothing else. On the outside, you look the same, smiling and pretending, itβs so much work. But inside itβs a different story. You start to hate yourself. Youβre so alone, so unbelievably alone. And you can be with someone you love, but youβre not really with them. We think we know whatβs going on with other people, but we donβt. You never really know whatβs going on inside someone elseβs head. Everyone is fighting a battle you canβt see. We all have blindspots. And you know itβs you. Itβs something wrong with you and itβs also exhausting. So goddamn shitty and exhausting, and, itβs helpless . Itβs a void. And existing takes so much energy. You wanna sink into a hole of nothing where no one talks to you, and you donβt have to smile or talk or be. Anyway, itβs familiar. Iβve been here before gotten out of it before, but the getting out part becomes the room that you remember but arenβt it. and thatβs whatβs scary. Being back in the room, where depression lives is a sharp pain and an overwhelming numbness