Stop, stop, stop! Just stop!

Stop writing, stop singing, stop dancing, stop performing. Just stop! Stop crying, stop fighting, stop beating yourself down for failing. Just stop! Stop holding on to the past, stop running away from your problems, stop beating yourself up because nobody sees your worth. Whatever it is, just stop!

Now close your eyes, and let your imagination take you on a journey.

” You in the middle of nowhere, let nowhere be wherever you decide it to be. The sun is sizzling hot, this made more evident by the way your skin aches as its rays penetrates to your bones. You hear the grumbling of your stomach echo through the wind. Your whole body hurts. You drained physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically. And so close to the verge of giving up, when the flow of the wind starts to speed up. It brings a calming sensation and soon the heat starts to decrease. For some reason you stop feeling hungry and when you touch your lips they so smooth and you can no longer feel the cracked pieces of skin coming of from them. So you close your eyes and become one with the tranquility in the atmosphere. Suddenly, water droplets cover your face, the wind starts accelerating. You open your eyes to make sense of whats happening. Boom!

Lightning strikes and right infront of you it slashes a hole through the ground. Flabbergasted by what just happened you start running. The clouds dissappear and the sky becomes a dark shadow looming over the world. The oxygen in the air starts to evaporate out of your lungs and so you stop. You stop running.

You relentlessly start shaking, cracks appear in the ground. So you right, that was not a seizure. So you set of again, running like Usain Bolts, followed by the shadows that now cloud the sky. And that’s when it hits you. The more you try to run away from it the darker it becomes. And as soon as you stop the earth opens itself up to engulf you. You decide to play mind games with whatever is happening. So, you run until it gets to dark and stop but not long to sink into the earth. And so you just keep on going.

Eventually it stops, you shout and scream with joy because you have overcome this nightmare. Sadly, your happiness does not last for long and you soon begin to feel down. Your mind a rollercoaster of emotions. A bomb waiting to erupt. Coming to the realization that this monster no longer surrounds you but it’s inside of you. If there’s no enemy within the enemy without cannot do you no harm. Already feeling defeated you allow it to swallow you whole. It constantly reminds you that you are not good enough. Bringing up past memories you’ve forgotten, because it wants you to believe that you are what your bullies said you were. Reminds you that you will never be loved. It makes you feel so insecure to the point where you lose your self and whatever you once believed in.

You can no longer control it, but you have always been a winner, and even now you going to win over this monster. And what better way to kill it then with a handful of pills and a glass of water. “Go on”, it tells you. Begging you to swallow those pills. It’s stuck in your through contemplating between life and death, only you have control now. So you don’t, you spit it all out. You never wanted to kill yourself you only wanted to escape. To escape from a monster that lurks in your mind. “

If someone had to ask me to describe the meaning of depression this is what I’d tell them. Yet I’m afraid they still would not understand, because it’s a thousand times worse then this. I would dare them to stay for even a split second in my mind, and I’d swear to God they would wonder how I survive.

And yes, I believe that I have won. Not because I tried to run away from my demons or tried to kill what was inside of me. I won by merely excepting that I’m not okay.