People these days, in the age of technology, love so much to act as though one simple search is enough for them to know what depression looks like.

“That character is definitely depressed.” They point at an individual with confident poise. All because they wear dark colors?

“Depression is when you cut yourself, don't you?” They utter with reckless words. An assumption, a stereotype made.

“I'm so depressed right now.” A simple saying. So simple that it is so commonly used.

Shown in various cartoons and series, yet poorly represented in each one. Their symptoms ridiculed, their problems downplayed, and their effects never truly shown.

Shows portray them as victims. And they are — I assure you, they are — but they show them pitiful. Eyes full of tears, unkept hygiene, bruises all over — they present them as weak, pitiful toddlers in need of a hug or a kiss to their wound.

They are not.

Other shows — they portray them as drowning. Sinking to the bottom of the ocean floor as they desperately try to claw and rip and tear their way back to the surface. Weights cuffed to their feet as they sink deeper and deeper and deeper in despair.

They… are not entirely wrong. But they are still incorrect.

Depression is not like that at all, at least at first.

The drowning only comes after they realize where they are. When they realize they wanted salvation, instead of liberation.

It approaches you like a siren's call, or a fog slowly seeping in.

Like a piece of gum from the street, stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

It comes as various hints of a thought, like puzzle pieces forming piece by piece.

Vague feelings of negativity turn to ambiguous thoughts turn to negative thoughts until slowly but surely, you realize something.

It beckons you to that ocean, has you walk with your own two feet in a daze and lends you as much chain as you're willing to receive as it pulls and strings you along with its words.

It's a comment or two. A throwaway “I'm kinda bad at this.”, a tiny little “Did I do something wrong?” to the side.

Slowly, it evolves. From doubt,

“Why did I do that?”

“I might mess this up.”

“Fuck, I did this.”

To hatred,

“Why the fuck am I like this?”

“What the hell is wrong with me?”

“God I'm such an idiot.”

Until you suddenly take a deep dive into the murky waters, the sirens having lured you in, pulling upon the chains you yourself had let them hand you, and diving down,

And down.

And down.

Until—

“God I wish I was dead.”

…

At that point, it is all too late. The flood gates, barely held back, burst open.

The idea is planted right inside of you, willingly put by yourself. Inserted into every little thing of your existence.

It starts as a far away daydream.

You might joke in your head a few times when life gets rough, but you don't really mean it, not yet.

Then it gets easier to joke, easier to think about.

You start joking about it anytime, quiet sighs at any minor inconvenience thrown your way, a tiny little voice, so sweet, so quiet, whispering promises of liberation from these annoyances.

“A simple freak accident would do.” You think.

“Somewhere, anywhere but here.” Only ‘here' is everywhere, and ‘somewhere’ might just be one little accident waiting to happen…

Over time, you start saying it aloud — in a joking manner, of course, yet still, you say it for someone, anyone, to hear.

They do not hear the plea in your words just as you don't either.

You still haven't yet realized just how deep the ocean truly is. Not until it is all too late.

Soon, those bold jokes of yours start to cement in your mind, a question, a devastating mistake you'll only realize once you can no longer take it back.

“What if I actually killed myself?”

Immediately you probably dismiss the thought, excuse it as the fog in your mind taking hold, a peculiar gum stubbornly stuck to the bottom of your shoe. Yet it still beckons you down into the deep, blue ocean.

You start thinking abstract thoughts of death, of ways you'd die, of peace away from all the noise and the utter exhaustion life brings you.

“Is this life really worth it?” You ask yourself sometimes.

And the more you ask, the less sure you are of your life.

“It's so tiring.” A whisper in your mind. “It's all so, so tiring.”

Slowly, you start to fancy the thought of it. Death. An absence of life. A liberation from the suffocating embrace of everything.

Sirens sing in your ears as you sink deeper and deeper, the chains binding you, pulling you closer. You are drowning. And you still do not realize it.

The ocean is a vast thing. You'd sooner drown than actually hit the very bottom of the seafloor. And you are sinking slowly as the thoughts enter your mind and tempt you.

What really snaps you out? Out of the haze you've found yourself in? The fog long since flooding your mind and dulling your senses?

It is different for every single person. And it does not happen for everyone. But for the people who've realized?

Some — once they've realized just how deep the ocean goes, how trapped they are by the very chains they've let themselves be given — attempt to swim back up. Struggling against the binds, clawing against the waves, drowning in the water. They realized that it was salvation they sought all along.

Sometimes they manage to break free, greedily gasping in air as they break the surface, the chains undone yet the scars they leave remain, marking their skin. Other times they do not, with all their desperation, they do not. And they become another soul that the ocean had taken and kept.

Others — who've realized where they were — accept the siren call. They do not struggle, they do not claw and tear their way out of their chains — they choose liberation.

Some accept their suffocation peacefully, quietly, perhaps with a gentle smile on their face as the waves move their body, and the creatures lurking within consume it. Other times they do their best to suffocate quicker, screaming not from struggle, but to simply embrace death quicker.

Even now, words cannot describe the true concept of what depression is, what it takes, what it makes you feel.

Because no metaphor, or symbolism, or explanation can ever compare to what it truly is.

A deep, vast ocean.

A dense, seeping fog.

A siren's call.

Liberation.

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Hello!

... Yeah no I'm just on and off at this point-