I don’t think I ever was.
My earliest memories are shrouded in a fog of melancholy that I’ve never quite been able to lift. I can’t even recall the moment I first decided to publish my thoughts for strangers to see, perhaps in a desperate bid to finally be acknowledged, to be seen in a way that I’ve never managed to achieve through spoken words. Verbal expression has always felt like a foreign language to me, a dialect of feelings that I simply cannot master.
I don’t hate many things, but I do hate how depression lingers like a shadow, always there, no matter what you do. It’s not like a seasonal cold, something that arrives with the chill of winter and departs when the sun starts to warm the earth again. Nor is it like a summer nosebleed, abrupt and startling, yet fleeting. Depression is a relentless fog that permeates every corner of your mind, an insidious presence that refuses to be banished. It’s like a stain on your soul that you can never fully scrub away, no matter how hard you try.
The truth is, I’m sad, and I have no idea why. Maybe I’m exhausted from the endless cycle of trying to explain this to those who have never felt its weight. They seem to think that if there’s nothing visibly wrong in your life, then there’s no reason to be depressed. But depression doesn’t play by those rules; it doesn’t offer you a tangible enemy to fight or a clear culprit to blame. It’s a formless, faceless entity, lurking in the recesses of your mind, whispering lies and feeding on your despair. It leaves you grappling with an emptiness that defies explanation, a void that swallows joy and leaves you stranded in a landscape devoid of hope.
Depression is not just a passing storm; it’s a climate. It’s a relentless drizzle that soaks through every layer of your being, leaving you cold and shivering, no matter how many layers you pile on to protect yourself. And the worst part is, it’s invisible to others. They see you standing in the sun, but they don’t see the storm clouds that are perpetually hovering just above your head. They don’t understand why you can’t simply step out of the rain and into the warmth, why you’re still drenched even when the sky is clear.
