Looking back looking forward

A year ago, if you'd tried to speak to me, my reply would have been brief. Single words or phrases at most. If you'd looked into my eyes, you would have seen exhaustion and grief. I was someone who looked like they'd given up. I was broken and battered, barely making it from day to day. I wandered through my life, hardly there at all. Inside, there was nothing. My brain had stopped turning and was set on auto pilot. I've never before experienced such silence. It was like everything had shut down. My internal voice took a vacation. 

Depression has a way of eating away at you until it feels like there is nothing left. There were times when I couldn't speak at all, either because I just wasn't physically able to, or because it seemed pointless to even try. There was nothing to say.

A room in hell with only your name on the door. That's a pretty good way of describing it. It is most definitely a solitary illness, one that people can't see, so they assume that really all you need to do is have a cup of tea and buck up. While tea is wonderful, and is a great restorative, it does not cure depression. What if it could eh? 

I don't say all of this to elicit sympathy or to attempt to make you feel sorry for me. I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing this, except that I feel like I need to. I talked to a friend a while back about my depression and hers. It's the kind of illness that is impossible to fathom unless you've had it or been very close to someone who did (and maybe not even then). You can't understand what goes on (or doesn't) inside ours heads. I was lucky that I had people around me who didn't push or ask questions. They just let me be, and were there to stop me from falling. 

I've realised that my depression will never go away. The medication did a really good job of enabling me to get my life back. For a while, it felt like that was it, it was gone for good. Coming off them was hard and it's taken a lot for me to stay strong and not give in to the triggers that I know can set it off again. But it will always be there, lurking in the shadows, trying to lure me back into that room in hell. 

Right now I'm good and I'm taking it one day, one step at a time.