How does depression feel?

I’m writing to you now from a city of perpetual fog. You can’t see what’s more than two feet away. The wisps of smoke have a will of their own – they feed on your own energy to multiply. To find your way out, you’ll have to walk blindly through a fog that’s ready to bury you, or worse, pump your soul until you’re nothing more than a stale core. You’ll never know whether you’re heading in the right direction, or into the bottomless abyss that takes center stage.

Welcome to stage 3 depression. I hope you enjoy your visit; I doubt it.
It wasn’t a planned step in your journey. On the highway of life, you took a wrong turn. It happens to everyone! I’ve been down the dark streets of Depression-City at least ten times myself.
The trouble is, this cursed town isn’t signposted in advance. When I left the freeway, it was without realizing it; I was tired and wanted to take a break.

Soon, my GPS stopped working. I was already on the outskirts of Depression-City.
The first signs were there. Between two sections of perfectly banal alleyway, a dark-eyed being, a Flesym, would occasionally stop me, trying to carve into my flesh with a sharp blade.

“You’re not going to succeed at anything.”

“You really are a bitch, aren’t you?”

“You deserve to die. You cockroach.”

Sweat poured down my face as I fled from my assailants. My heart was pounding, my hands trembling. I fled, again and again. I tried to find my way back to the highway of Life.
But I was so tired. And the adrenaline rush wasn’t helping. I couldn’t concentrate any more, exhaustion had replaced me at the wheel of my car.
So I plunged into Depression-City, heading for downtown. I didn’t notice I was getting that lost. I just drove straight on, when I should have turned around. But that was an effort I could no longer make. Every movement was costing me too much, as I struggled to keep my eyes open. I held on as long as I could, then succumbed to Depression-City’s traps.

I found myself on the outskirts of the center.

In stage 2 of Depression-City, you’re forced to keep your car windows down. The whole area is suffering from a lack of oxygen, and you, already, from a lack of sleep. Ensuring your safety becomes a complicated task. The alleyways take on the shape of a labyrinth; dead ends multiply.
There were more of them around, the Flesym. They were also more aggressive.

“Shall I open my garage for you? Park your car here, block the exhaust and leave the engine running. It’ll be quick…”

“There’s a bridge not far away… You’re already a stain. What’s the difference if you leave another one behind a few miles down the road?”

But the Flesym are no longer content to attack with invisible knives. Sometimes, one of them takes confidence, and will punch you in the face rather than in the heart.

Hurt, exhausted and going in circles for too long, I finally forgot the existence of the Highway of Life. By the time I found a way out of the labyrinth at stage 2 of Depression-City, and saw that it led to stage 3, I was too weakened to turn back.
So that’s where I’m writing. I had to abandon my car, as there was too much risk of running straight into a wall. I unbuckled my seatbelt and wandered off into the mist.

The Flesym circle around me like blood-hungry vultures. They regularly emerge from the poisonous fog to stab me, metaphorically and physically. I can’t see them coming. Everything is too foggy. I’m at the end of my rope, and I don’t even try to defend myself anymore. I sat on a bench for thirty seconds; each second lasts twenty years. Time is distended here.

I don’t dare move. To do what? Take one step too many and fall into the abyss?

The abyss is stage 4 of Depression-City. On Travel.State.Gov, this zone of the city would be in red. It’s strictly forbidden to go there.
The Flesym are so numerous, you literally suffocate under their numbers. There’s no light; in the underbelly of Depression-City, it’s better to be blind anyway. Nobody wants to see the corpses that occupy every square meter.
Mine included.

I’ve died many times in my life. To be reborn, you first have to perish; a lesson I learned in the hellfire, in the polar cold of depression.

Despite the sparkling burn that mental suffering provokes, I’m in favor of considering depression an icy being. It’s a disease similar to the cold; if you fall asleep in it, it will kill you without waking you up. Depression is a silent killer, an invisible, insidious danger. White as snow, it hides the ice beneath its harmonious flakes.

When you’re sick with depression, you’re going through a very hostile territory. The disease, like a vicious cancer, works in stages. For me, at least, that’s how the infection spreads:

• Stage 1: Sometimes you feel overwhelmed, all at once, without rhyme or reason. A negative thought crosses your mind, a personal and unjustified criticism that you address to yourself. But if you concentrate, and don’t give yourself the opportunity to remain sad, you’ll climb back up the slope towards the highway of Life. It’s an almost insurmountable effort, to be made over and over again, as often as necessary, and always when you least expect it.
• Stage 2: Now, sometimes you don’t feel overwhelmed. Most of the time, you’re in the throes of a mind bent on destroying you. You regularly contemplate killing yourself, too tired to fight to continue existing. Occasionally, you try to kill yourself.
• Stage 3: Your mind is in a fog. Like driving in foggy weather, you’re in slow motion. Time is distended; you lack the strength for anything. Shower? A meal? An outing? You don’t have the energy. For nothing, in fact! Nothing brings you the slightest joy. You still suffer from the symptoms of the first two stages, but now you’re trapped with them. You never reach the surface of the healthy mind. You are constantly bewildered, stupefied by the disease.
• Stage 4: All the symptoms of the previous stages, constantly, without respite. Regular attempts to kill yourself, to stop the hellish suffering you feel. Associated, in my case, with cases of dissociation; I leave my body, and disappear, a living ghost. At such times, I wander aimlessly, not even knowing where I am. I’ve even “woken up” on foot on a highway once. I believe it’s similar as when you’re critically injured, and you slip into a mental coma to escape the intolerable pain that fills you.

In my misfortune, I’m lucky. I’ve survived countless suicide attempts, and I’ve been through Depression-City enough times to recognize the symptoms. But when you start your depressive journey, you don’t understand anything. What’s happening to you? You don’t know that this town is not a normal place. The city is inside you, and you’re the only one who can see its outskirts on the horizon. What’s more, Depression-City is different for everyone.
All around you, people go on as normal, blind to the destructive attempts of your own mind. So when you tell them you’re being attacked from within…

They’ll tell you you’re crazy. They won’t understand.

Yes, worse than the Flesym, who are just sick incarnations of yourself, there’s also… other people.
Those in the know are already locked up in the city with you. They can’t help you any more than you can help them; they’re fighting the same battle, each on his or her own battlefield.
You’ll have to fight the battle alone, against the Flesym, and against the rest of humanity.

As a matter of fact, if you’re like me, you’ll have been fighting for survival since birth. When you’ll make your way through Depression-City, you’ll already be exhausted. Keep holding on, soldier. After a fall, comes the time to climb back up.