Lumos.

For me, the past few weeks have been rough.

A friend told me last night:
Your depression is eating you alive. I love you far too much to see you become a cannibal--you can control this. Don't let it consume you. If you let it, you'll have eaten up yourself, every worthless pessimist view of your life, and maybe possible even our friendship.

I need you back. You were the first to let me know my worth. You're worth so much to me. Don't die on me.

I couldn't think of anything to say to him that would make him understand, except to explain to him what depression was, and what it feels like to be depressed.

So I told him:
I'm not sure how to respond except to say this: Imagine your darkest day, how you felt. Now, imagine that it is no longer just one day, but seven. And you're doing everything you can to change it, but that darkness won't go away. It goes on to day eight, and soon it's weeks. Next, months. Sure, you'll have good moments in between, enough to keep you going, but they're short lived. You go back nearly immediately to feeling dark and twisty. You hurt the people who care about you, but can't fix it. You hurt yourself, but can't care. Little makes you feel any lighter. No matter how much you want to change it, or how much you try, it doesn't go away.

And then, randomly, for no reason, one day, it does. And you're happy. So you embrace it. You live it up for as long as it lasts, but there's always that little piece of darkness that you know will eventually come back.

This is my struggle. This is my reality every day. When I feel sad, no matter how much I fight it, there isn't anything I can do to make it go away. So you telling me not to let it consume me? I know that already.

That's my life. That's what I fight every day. Even the good ones. I've been controlling it. But it isn't a monster that just goes away when you turn the light to your bedroom on.