There is an enormous monster always standing behind me. It finds pleasure in taunting me, causing me pain, watching me suffer.
It makes all food taste bitter. It makes my friends seem like enemies. It points out death everywhere, in everything. It makes all the colours grey. It makes my muscles weak and my mind numb. It creeps into my head at night when I'm in bed and gives me nightmares.
It holds me back by my scruff and makes me struggle to move forward.
And yet it offers comfort. It whispers seductively into my ear, coaxing me to let go and fall back into its big, strong arms, promising to hold me tightly and keep me safe.
But it lies.
It will only pin me down gradually with its horrifying weight, slowly sliding its hands up around my throat and squeezing steadily, reveling in my increasingly terrified gasps and cries of desperation.
Still, it will whisper sweetly to me, assuring me that it will stop torturing me if I just give in and let it take me. That if I stop struggling and let it into myself, it will take me to a place where there is no pain, no suffering, no nightmares, no struggles. A place where there is nothing at all.
A place where I can rest, in peace.
This is what depression feels like.
