Do you know what depression makes you feel like?

It makes you feel like a shadow.  Like a nightmare creature told in the stories of children's fairy tales.  It drains the life and joy out of you and leaves you feeling like a memory of who you once were.

When you have the strength, you get up for the day.  You get ready, you walk around, you go through the routines just like any "normal" person would.  Except where other people may have feelings of dread or excitement or nervousness for what their day holds for them, you feel nothing.  Everything is just going through the motions.  Doing what you have to do because its expected; and besides - what else is there to do?

Some days are better than others.

The bad days you have to talk yourself into existing.  That while laying in bed for the whole day may seem best - (that's when you can best pretend you're not here, right?) - it'll only make you feel like shit later on in the day.  Or the next day, depending.  Sometimes it takes any and every amount of what little effort you have left to put one leg over the edge of the bed, and then the other.  Then sit up.  Then stand up and walk yourself to the bathroom.

Those days are gotten through with baby steps.

The good days, getting out of bed isn't really a chore.  You can function.  You look normal, sound normal, you even exhibit emotions that are seen as "normal."  You laugh, you talk, you interact.  To anyone else watching you, everything seems fine.  You seem to be able to function in a perfectly easy-going, effortless manner.

Which is, of course, a lie.

Because years ago when you first started to feel the edges of the darkness fraying around you, you didn't put on a show.  You lived your life like an open book and didn't pretend to be happy.  Until one day in high school that one friend stated "God, stop being such a downer."  And from then on, you put on a happy face and pretended the life was rainbows and sunshine and kittens because you didn't want to be the one bringing people down.

So you became the world's greatest actor.

A shadow impersonating a human.  You look like a person, you communicate like one, you even smile and joke like one.  But on the inside, it's empty.  You feel like you're dying; like you've died a thousand deaths.  'I wonder what it would be like to kill myself' becomes a casual, daily thought.

Because that's what depression does to you.

It takes and steals and robs.  It takes away any emotions you may feel, it steals away the simple, everyday joys that people take for granted, and it robs you of being able to live life to the fullest.  Even more so, it robs you of hope.

And the longer you go on with this beast inside you, living your life as a shadow-person, the more the light fades.  The further hope slips from your grip.  And any life you may have had before depression settled into your soul becomes a faded memory.  Not even something you can recall living on your own, but like a slice of happiness you read out of a book once.  You experienced it through words that painted pictures of happiness but you didn't actually experience it on your own.


So that is what life becomes: a shadow.
Muted colours, smudged edges, pixelated images.
A shadow creature living in a shadow world.