What Depression Is

Depression is a big, skittery spider that you tried to smash with a book or some other heavy object but it got away and now it’s hiding in a dark corner of your bedroom so you stay awake all night because you know it will be back.

Depression is a big wave in the ocean that pushes you over and pulls you out into dangerous surf and then gets in your eyes so that everything looks wrong and blurry, and it makes you cry (so much water, so much salt) and you can’t tell if your loved ones are reaching out their hands to pull you up to safety or to point and laugh.

Depression is that long, decaying wooden bridge in all those Indiana Jones movies, and you’ve got to run across it carrying your shining golden treasure (so beautiful, so fragile) and you don’t know which of the wooden boards is going to splinter under the weight of you, making you watch in horror as your rare treasure plummets through the air and shatters on the ground in a million shards.

Depression is the mean girl in middle school with the silken hair and the serpent’s tongue who tells you you’re too fat, too dumb, too ugly to be loved.

Depression is the sweet girl in middle school with the shy smile and kind eyes who tells you you’re too mean, too selfish, too cruel to be loved.

Depression is a fiend. Depression is a bitch. Depression is a thief and a liar.