Welcome to Litsy!

I get sad too. You just have to focus on the positive. Cheer up, it can't be that bad. Why are you so sad when you have so much? These are all things people have said to me. Of course they mean well, but there is such a lack of understanding surrounding depression. Depression is so much more than just sadness.Comparing sadness and depression is like saying that getting wet and drowning are the same thing. When you are sad, you sometimes say you feel blue. When I'm depressed, the world is void of all color. No rainbows exist for me. There is no gold. As for what causes my depression...that's not so easy. Nothing and Everything are making me depressed. Everything likes to tell me I am the center of the universe - that I am, in one way or another, the cause of all that is wrong around me. And as much as I know I'm not that important, Everything helps me find a way to connect everyone's problems to myself. Nothing drapes itself over my shoulders, a shroud of heaviness that slows me down, and makes me feel like I'm losing my mind. Nothing is the thing that steals my sense of self, making it impossible to know who I really am. When my depression, hits it doesn't ask if I'm ready. It doesn't care if I've got other things on my mind. It just walks right in, sits at the head of the table and starts the mental static that ruins each day. These poems are about my co-existence with my mental illness - a glimpse into my "drowning moments." There is no shame in mental illness, and I refuse to remain silent. I share my voice so that others will know they are not alone. I share my words so that those whose words have been stolen can find comfort, and possibly healing. I share my words because that is the only thing I know how to do. Nothing and Everything is my gift to anyone suffering from depression or any other mental illness, and those whose lives intersect with them. The stigma surrounding mental illness needs to be dropped. We are different, but we are not broken.