I sit here writing this in the dark because it’s 5am and my ceiling’s light bulb just burnt out. The darkness is fitting though. It is fitting to write about one’s depression in the dark.

Mental illness is a funny thing, the slightest thing can trigger the worst of episodes. What is even worse is that when big things happen it can make the worst episodes even worse.

I will not go into excessive detail, my business is my own, but I have screwed up a few times in the last few months. No more than any other human has I think, but the list is growing. I am only human after all. I always view life’s mistakes or failures as lessons learned to be used for the future. To demand perfection of oneself is toxic and to pretend you will never make mistakes or accidentally hurt people’s feelings is just moronic. To think you will never err is to err.

But it still keeps me awake thinking about the lines I have crossed, the bridges I have burned, the damage I have done. I have heard of a psychological phenomenon called “negativity bias” which exists within us all, perhaps that is all this is. Perhaps this is just my brain choosing to remember the bad days instead of the good ones, the fuck ups instead of the successes, I honestly don’t know what the hell is going on in this organ in my skull.

Mental illness comes down to two things, our environment and what it triggers in our brain chemistry. What is “my environment”? Well I take a global perspective, I am no nationalist. The world is my home, but one reality is that I live in America 2018 which is enough of an environment to make even the perkiest yoga instructor get into goth.

Ramblings, all of these are just ramblings in the dark with no beginning, middle, or end. I’m wondering if I should even post this, if it wouldn’t be better to save it and come back to it when my head is clear. No, no, I must write and share it now, as is, I want people to know what it’s like to fight off the voices in your head that tell you to kill yourself. I want people to know what it feels like to be mad at yourself when something isn’t even your fault and to hate yourself when you know it is.

I want people to know what it is like to sit in the darkness.

Yet, oddly enough, I also do not want people to wallow in despair nor pity me. People with depression don’t need or want pity, they need support, they need patience. In due time I will go to the hardware store and get a lightbulb and I will have light again. My depression is not as simple of a fix, but I still feel the metaphor is there. The darkness is never a permanent situation, it never has been and never will be, and I tell myself that over and over again, until the light comes back on.

This is what it is like to sit in the darkness.