Depression Support Group
Depression is a real and debilitating condition that is often misunderstood by family and friends. Its meaning can range from a prolonged period of sadness to an actual mental illness with specific symptoms. Find and share experiences with others who are going through the same struggles.
I wrote this a while ago for a novel which will never be published. It is not really happy, but it does reflect my state of mind right now. May everyone find a way of climbing out of their personal holes.
*****
The phrase hitting bottom is used when you feel youre life cant get any worse. The phrase is inaccurate, however. It gives the wrong impression because there isnt, in fact, a bottom to hit.
There is just an infinitely deep, black, rocky, stinking hole with a whole lot of hard ledges.
When you fall, the bottom you think youve hit is really just one of these ledges. You lie there, bleeding, bruised, broken, and gasping, thinking to yourself, Well, at least Im at the bottom now. At least I cant go any lower.
And, if youre lucky, you can dust yourself off and start climbing, and you would never know that you werent really at the bottom and that you were just inches away from another precipice.
But, if youre not lucky (and this has usually been my experience) your ledge will crumble away, or you will take one step too far back and youll spin through the stinking black space until you crack your head against the next one.
Well, there are a lot of ledges, a lot of places to fall too, a lot of places to split your head and your heart open on. Beneath every ledge is another ledge. For example, you can fall on the ledge of depression, and then trip backwards off of this ledge and fall on the ledge of divorce, and then this ledge crumbles and you break your jaw on the death of someone close ledge, then falling to the losing your job ledge, which naturally breaks away and drops you onto the losing your home ledge.
No matter how far you think youve fallen, there is always another ledge to fall to. There are ledges for insanity, jail, cancer; it just goes on and on.
Now theres a thing you should ask yourself as you fall.
Are the ledges upon which you stand really just crumbling away?
Or are you deliberately stepping off them?
*****
The phrase hitting bottom is used when you feel youre life cant get any worse. The phrase is inaccurate, however. It gives the wrong impression because there isnt, in fact, a bottom to hit.
There is just an infinitely deep, black, rocky, stinking hole with a whole lot of hard ledges.
When you fall, the bottom you think youve hit is really just one of these ledges. You lie there, bleeding, bruised, broken, and gasping, thinking to yourself, Well, at least Im at the bottom now. At least I cant go any lower.
And, if youre lucky, you can dust yourself off and start climbing, and you would never know that you werent really at the bottom and that you were just inches away from another precipice.
But, if youre not lucky (and this has usually been my experience) your ledge will crumble away, or you will take one step too far back and youll spin through the stinking black space until you crack your head against the next one.
Well, there are a lot of ledges, a lot of places to fall too, a lot of places to split your head and your heart open on. Beneath every ledge is another ledge. For example, you can fall on the ledge of depression, and then trip backwards off of this ledge and fall on the ledge of divorce, and then this ledge crumbles and you break your jaw on the death of someone close ledge, then falling to the losing your job ledge, which naturally breaks away and drops you onto the losing your home ledge.
No matter how far you think youve fallen, there is always another ledge to fall to. There are ledges for insanity, jail, cancer; it just goes on and on.
Now theres a thing you should ask yourself as you fall.
Are the ledges upon which you stand really just crumbling away?
Or are you deliberately stepping off them?
unless you were one of those people thinking things can't get any worse. Those people are going to cry when they realise they can get worse!