(tw; hypothermia, death)

Having depression is like being caught out in a blizzard.

At first, the cold seems like nothing.

You're all bundled up in a fluffy coat,
scarf wrapped around your face,
hands slipped into gloves and tucked under your arms.

But then the snow begins to fall,
and the temperature drops,
and it's like the chill is stripping you down, layer by layer,
even though all your layers are still there.

It gets colder, and you start to feel the effects of the chill,
the fierce winter seeping into your bones,
making it seem as though you only walked outside
in a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt.

Your body begins to numb as the cold starts,
the weakest parts of you losing their feeling first.

Your nose,
your ears,
your cheeks and your face and your fingers,
all becoming completely numb,
as if they aren't there anymore.

And then your legs stiffen up,
and you have trouble walking,
even though you try so hard to keep moving,
because you know if you stop, you're doomed.

But you lose your ability to function,
the cold causing almost complete ****** paralysis,
and no matter how hard you try,
it's impossible to keep moving.

You fall to the ground,
curling into a ball in the snow,
trying to keep yourself warm,
but the cold is too much.

And as the hypothermia sets in,
your brain tricks you into thinking you're actually warm,
and you strip off the layers that were the only thing
keeping you alive.

And then it's over.

It wasn’t something that just appeared, it wasn’t something that was just found, it was unlike the finding of money on the floor.

It was slow, it crept in while you slept and slowly covered everything. Like the rising of the moon, sometimes in broad daylight and never noticed until dark, until it was at the peak of it’s rise. Like the falling of an avalanche, seemingly slow and insignificant yet drastically changes everything in its path.

At first, it was a stray thought, easily shaken off at the first sign of reassurance.  Occurring maybe once every few months, not at all worth questioning. Then it rises in frequency, and it needs more than a glance to disperse. It’s starting to plant doubts in your mind, but it seems weak, like the weeds in the ground, so sometimes you let it pass, let it go, because it’s weak and doesn’t need to be pulled, doesn’t need to be reassured.

But then the **** grows, spreads it’s poison to every part of your world, to your thoughts and your dreams, to your waking hours. What once was a sprout became a tree, became a forest, and suddenly, you can’t remember what you used to do before the forest arrived. Suddenly you don’t remember why you watered the large forests that surround you, don’t remember how you got there, how it got there. Just that tending the forests were your job, and you can’t leave.

Suddenly, what clear skies you used to have becomes shaded, blotched and covered. The forest has extended its branches and its invading your space, and as the tender of the forest, you do nothing to discourage the far reaching branches and the roots that set about to destroy your plains.

Suddenly its dark and moist and alone. Suddenly your surrounded with no way out, with no way to tell up from down, and there isn’t anything in the area, just you and the trees and it feels like the trees are alive and something is here.

And how can there be anything there when you’re alone?