A Cage Made of Shadows

It’s a monster you cannot see.

Seeping through the crevices of your life to invade your senses and corrupt your sensibilities. It molds its corrupted form over your thoughts, feelings, and emotions and contorts them into lies you cannot help but believe.

That’s how depression works. That’s what’s so insidious about it. It comes as poison cloaked as truth. It likens itself to wisdom, when in reality it’s a blanket made from knives. There’s no truth or comfort in its machinations. Only a prison of pain.

Of course try recognizing this when you’re tangled in depression’s thorns.

But that’s exactly what you need to do.

When you’re caught up in the big lie, the first and most important step is calling it out. Staring it straight in the face and letting it know that you know exactly what it is. This ain’t a cure-all. You won’t magically feel better. But it’s the first step in releasing yourself from depression’s grip. Staring it in the eye helps you to recognize that, for all its dreadful power, depression is in truth a mirage. An illusion with teeth. A darkness lying to itself so to make you believe its lie.

This ain’t easy. Nothing about it is easy. It takes everything to combat this false dragon. But combat it you must. And in order to do that, you must — you must — face it head on and know it for the liar that it is.