The Black Blanket From Hell

Depression.

It takes everything from you. It puts you down, and keeps you there.

You want to move, but you can't.

You're stuck here.

You're not so much sad as you are incapacitated.

No matter how hard you want to be productive, active, get things done.

You just can't.

Impossible to really explain to anyone who hasn't been here.

It is like draping this cloak of darkness over you, to where you are covered in it and comforted in a strange way, but immobilized. You see light and opportunity, but the blanket is so heavy, you can't get out from under it.

So you let it keep you warm. And utterly dying at the same time.

Simple things like making a meal, or cleaning up, or walking the dogs become overwhelming tasks that might as well have been someone asking you to design the next skyscraper.

Everything suffers. Your friends. Your family. Your relationships. God forbid, your job and livelihood spiral down into the black hole.

Its not that you stop caring.

Its that you cannot move.

It is for me, the worst thing I have ever experienced. For a long time, years back, I was able to do the kinds of things that helped offset the effects. I exercised hard, I had a job that required me to think and act and perform. I had a family and a home of my own.

I now have none of those things. Have not for a long while.

To make matters worse...the very worst place for someone battling this is in a place filled with clutter and confusion.

And I live in the worst of hoarder's hells. My father's house.

I half-joking tell visitors (of which I have almost none), to not put anything of theirs down anywhere. Because they won't be able to find it again. It's not even an exaggeration.

The incredible clutter and mess serve to completely confound any efforts to pull out from under the blanket. You look around you, and you cannot even find what you need. Without space and organization, fighting depression is like being thrown into a maze with all the lights turned off.

And you simply give up. Because for a normal person, the effort required to deal with clutter and disorganization is difficult.

For someone suffering depression?

It's a life sentence.

That is one reason I cannot wait to leave this place behind. Which I am doing shortly.

To say it is taking superhuman effort is an understatement.

When you wear this black, lead cloak....just moving is near impossible.

Tearing it off and flying away?

As close to miraculous as it gets.

Wish me luck.