Everyone has their own monsters. We live in their ever looming shadows. Few amongst us can boast of an ability to beat them. Fewer still are free of them. They exist everywhere, like the dirty vermin that fell our health. They're under your bed, in your closet, outside your window in the black of the night, in that bully you see at school everyday, in your manager and worst of all - inside yourself.
These monsters in your head are not easily bested. In my opinion, they're the hardest to best. They assault the one place a human can call his/her own - your heart and mind. They twist your conscience, crook your boundaries, unsettle your calm and make you miserable.
One such monster is named depression, by us humans. This monster is definitely masculine and hence I assume it to be a male. He makes us weak. He makes the light in our lives die. In his presence, we humans engage in the worst sort of self-destructive activities, some of which are brooding, non-participation, self-blaming, self-loathing, etc. We lose our self confidence and our self esteem. We tend to feel alone and hopeless. Our ability to think clearly is gone and our reasoning teeters at the edge of madness.
Is there a way to fight this horrible monster, let alone beat it? I wouldn't know. I have seen posts on facebook describing how everyone gets depressed at some point in their life, and how they should ask for help, rather than suffer alone. I always sympathised with the people who fell pray to this monster. I never imagined, for a second that I would be one among them.
I lived a happy life. I was untouched by anything remotely close to depression. I never let myself get to such a place. But, what I never accounted for, was how life changes. A bout with a monster as powerful as depression, leaves one a changed person. You're never the same again. Often, people mistake being sad for being depressed. Being sad seems a good thing, when faced with an adversary as fearsome as depression.
What's most unsettling about this ugly monster is how he entices you. Against your best judgement, you might get used to his looming presence, sometimes enjoying the extreme sadness, loneliness and unhappiness he brings with him. You become selfish in that, you never care about how your battle affects the ones closest to you, and how can you? They were, most likely, the ones who introduced depression to you, knowingly or unknowingly.
You isolate yourself from the world and all its happiness, feeling you don't deserve it. In some cases, you're just afraid to be happy, fearing falling into the hands of depression again, after the elation that happiness brings you. After all, it would be torture to escape depression, just to be betrayed back to him by the one friend you thought would never betray you - happiness.
What's heartening to see, is that depression almost never prevails. He is beaten, in one way or another and the people who do survive their fight with him, come out like butterflies from their cocoons - beautiful and colourful, full of life and flying on their wings. It is reason to celebrate, yes, but that is little consolation, since there is no text book or lecture that tells you how to fight the monster. You have to find your own way of defeating him. And in your fight with him, you often notice the cases where he prevailed over a fellow fighter, and set more store by it than the hope that the ones who won against him can give you. For his victories, are gory and scary. The end result is often very disturbing and leaves a mark on this happy world.
Such is the fearsome gait of the monster named depression. I will give you no false hope. But, out of sheer will, I will paint a pretty ending to this dark writing. So hear me:
Depression is a life changing entity, and no matter how you look at him, you have to concede to his power. He may be a villain on this earth, but the ones he fights and looses to, are gifted with fearsome strength, immense kindness and the will to live happily, amongst other traits. He is the unsung hero, who will forever live on, working to make us stronger than himself.
