Explaining drowning while drowning (depression)
Honestly, I’m not sure why I’m writing any of this.
Perhaps I’m hoping someone out there will read these and care about me. Perhaps not.
Does it make me feel any better to write about my wrecked life? Sometimes, but not really.
To help you, my dear reader, understand what it’s like to write from a place of complete loss, deep depression, and teetering on the edge of fading to black..
I’m standing at the end of a small wooden dock looking down into the glassy deep blue.
I bend down to peer further into the deep with a guttural feeling of something being down there.
I squint my eyes and focus intently past the reflective surface and begin to see a hand reaching to me. I begin to see a face appear, blurred by the water, but its becoming clear to me that there is a person.
Oddly, I can sense that this person of the deep is in trouble. Yet, I feel a great sense of calm and no urgency at all by either party.
I stretch my hand out slowly, debating on whether or not I should or even can help…
I remember falling… first very suddenly and fast… then a floating sensation. This nagging sharp thought tells me I was a bit close to the edge but someone pushed me over it.
I’m sinking now, slowly, but sinking none-the-less. I’m not holding my breath, but yet I’m not breathing either. Concentrate on your own breath and then just stop breathing… not holding your breath.. just simply stopping.
Feel the nothingness? You’re not struggling to breath, you’re not panicking, you’re just.. not anything.
That’s what it feels like to be in a deep depression. The odd deep feeling of nothingness.
I don’t have the energy or motivation to swim to the surface. Sure, I can see the light and even the hand reaching out to me. But I just can’t seem to start swimming.
I can’t control my descent either; the depths slowly pulling me deeper. I can feel the tug but don’t know what it is that’s got a hold of me. How do you stop something you can’t see, describe, or even understand yourself?
Reaching my hand closer to the surface I notice the person in the water is me. It’s a reflection of myself, peering back at me.
I’m not reaching to be saved, it’s a reflection of me reaching to the deep. It’s my sub-conscious fighting with itself to make a decision one way or the other.
Am I really reaching in to pull myself out or am I reaching in to be pulled down into the deep and stay there?
Either way, standing that close to the edge.. all it takes is a little push to help me dive right in.
