Breakdown

Woman sitting on log looking out to sea at sunset
Woman sitting on log looking out to sea at sunset

The darkness descends like a black mould
Taking over the recesses of your body mind and soul
All in the background so nobody can see
But the life starts to die from deep inside

From the outside you are happy
Your perfect life starts to change
The cracks start to show
Your smile becomes less buoyant

You start to fake everything
Being happy
Being in control
Just being

Your world starts to crumble
But it looks like a bad dream
One that you’re inside of, feeling everything
But you’re sure you will wake up from

You don’t wake up from it
It engulfs you
Your mind plays tricks on you
What is reality and what is the nightmare?

Isolation is the key to inner death
Loneliness the key to depression
A black pit of nothingness
Swallows you up from within

Sleep. What is that?
A thing of the past that used to support your body
There is no growth or rest
Just despair and nothingness

Then there is something
You start to feel alive again
Deep sorrow and pain take over
And you don’t want to be alive anymore

You have pushed everybody away
It’s all too hard to explain
I don’t understand it
I can’t stop crying

Reaching out to others is impossible
Something else has taken over
It’s inside me
I can’t get rid of it

The black rules my life now
It descends any time it wants to
When I yearn for the light and gasp for air
The black takes over and says no

The black is a heightened state of consciousness
Of HELL
There is no escape
There is no light

The walls of my reality need to come down
I need to go within to fight
The David and Goliath of emotional wellbeing
I start throwing stones

The sheer will of pulling myself out of the abyss
Somehow makes it become a reality
I have no idea how
I just wake up one day completely broken but awake

I feel every part of the pain
It is no longer in the abyss of the subconscious
As I acknowledge it and accept it
The life comes back

I start to sleep, even just a little
I see the light because I’ve seen the dark
I am fully conscious
I can feel again

I no longer want to numb the pain
It is like an abandoned child that I need to take in
My abandoned child
That I can no longer ignore

There is power in truth
In acknowledgement
In sitting with the pain
But no longer in fear

The fear would come back
Panic attacks ensued
My whole body reacts negatively
I don’t want to go back there again

I call out to the spiritual world
There must be something there
There must be an opposite of the black
There must be life

There is
I had the courage to ask for help
I had the courage to face my demons
I gave time to my soul to help it heal

Healing is a lifetime goal
It is not finite
The deep recesses are real
The black is real

But I no longer fear it
I talk to it
I hate it
I love it

It’s part of who I am
Ignoring it is death
Bringing it to the light is healing
Working with it is transformation

The work is a lifetime
The depression is just a word
The reality is we are not skin deep
We are as deep as eternity

It is all real
It is all un-real
There are no explanations
Just blind faith

And the knowledge that we will all die
But now is not the time
Now is the time to work out
How to live