The concept of depression is so hard to grasp when you're on the other side, the light side. The side that doesn't quite know where it starts and how it feels to be looking in on what were all told is where we want to be. When you cannot understand the process of life under the constant influence of medication and the power of negative thoughts about anything and everything. People often think its just a thing people have. An excuse to complain or be alone, but sometimes, most times, its an unavoidable disease brought about by chemical imbalances in ones own brain. A biological flaw that we will forever be ridiculed for having. A mistake in our genetics that we cannot help, or cure. A problem rooted in your own psyche. A metaphor for an unjust world where peoples words and gestures are magnified by incomprehension.
Its unfortunate, but a reality that people turn to substances to make it all just that much more bearable. In best case scenarios, people are able to overcome this disease, turn their mental habits into a work of art. Use it to their advantage and become famous for it. Kurt Cobain will forever live on in our memories as will Vincent Van Go. But are they really role models or should we look deeper into the bloodshot eyes and sunken expressions of our friends and siblings, force them to face the reality that one of these days they're just not going to be able to make it out alive. They wont be able to reach that high any more and the artificial happiness just wont be the same.
I've seen it before, only in brief glimpses through flashing blue lights, on a comfortable bed on the floor eating ice cream as the dim light of the early morning forces its way through the dishevelled curtains, but I know it was real. It was a glow that hung around his matted fro of dark brown curls, reaching almost to his collar, forced across his forehead from nervous twitching. For the first time I had seen the tiniest hint of real happiness. There was no need for that joint he often told himself that he needed, there was no need for the bottle of pills that lay half empty on his bedside table. In that one small moment, I knew he would realise that it was just an excuse, that deep down he knew that there was still hope and the he could feel it inside him. The power to make a change. To himself, to his family. He didn't need to do it, but I knew, all too well, that there was still that nagging urge, the pull you feel at the back of your neck just as it hits you. That comforting tugg, pulling you under where you know you can forget everything, the reason you keep coming back to the dealer, the reason you tell yourself that one more drag wont hurt, that after this one you'll stop because it will all be better. Never thinking past the pull, never thinking to the next morning, never realising its all part of the haze, the addiction.
Being able to find it within yourself to know the difference between the artificial happiness and the glow you emmit when you're not on a different level to the majority of the world is a delicate subject, one not often discussed by the people who need to discuss it most. They all know that its there, they're scared. Scared to admit defeat and scared to try in case they fail.
I haven't thought of a solution to this problem, because I don't think its something generic. I just though, for a while, about him, and that night and her and the person she used to be, and the unfortunate reality that she's probably very little of the person she was before she stopped the pills, the man he was before he started and the reason I have the utmost faith that in some small way we both helped each other out of a dark place.
The most beautiful Souls.