The Depressive End of the Spectrum

When depression hits me it is an endless buzz of pain that paralyzes. Stuck in bed but unable to sleep. I feel constant self hatred. My skull seems to collapses in on my brain. The pain is extreme -- it seems there must be some physical manifestation, for example, a blood trickle out of my nose, eyes or ears seems reasonable. A siren (think car alarm) relentlessly screams its spittle on my face. Assaulted and frozen in a white hell I cannot escape. No end. No help. No way to make it stop. Ahhh and then the thought comes. It will stop if I stop. Death becomes the solution. Relief is death. Death the logical choice.

My family and friends find it odd that I would ever choose suicide because I love life. I have always tried to live as deeply, as large as possible ("suck the marrow out of bones"). I did not turn to death because I hated life, rather depression took away my life and my options. Death was the only way to escape the searing white hell of depression and cheat depression from extracting one more ounce from my sad frame.

And now? Here I am alive. Depression has been pushed deep inside by medication. What does it mean now that I know my brain structure is malformed and the cause of much of my pain? Why my brain? I wonder - is my intellect malformed as well? These seem reasonable concerns, yet what do I know since I am the one with the structurally unsound mind?

So let's stop and take an inventory: malformed brain, sanctioned addict to meds, the blinding aspect of depression - hidden deep but lurking. So why am I here? Now it seems spite and wonder. Spite against the disease. Spite against all that I have lost. Yet also love of the grass. Love of the people who inexplicably love me. Love of the wind. So here I am. I "rage against the dying of the light" and choose to live: lurkers, handfuls of meds and all.