Depression is not a grey mist hanging over everything, it is the absence of the grey mist that 'normal' people are accustomed to. They experience life in a muted way. We, as depressives, get the chance to experience the truth, for that moment, and it is so unbearably painful because it is real.
Seeing this reality is being exposed to the truth. We think. Does the truth lie?

So today, I just had some sort of epiphany. It's weird because I get these sort of things when I am in the weirdest places. And that weird place for me is inside a plane. Near the window seat, not quite ,but the soft sunlight hits me in the right way and I feel pleased.  I had coffee before I boarded so it had the effect I needed to behave quite cheerfully. Oddly enough today I did not go through my all too familiar episodes of inability to function normally, submerge jn a lake of hopelessness or just hate everything and anything all at once. Though to be quite fair my stomach feels strange again maybe be cause of the cold drink I had or the influence of feeling panic every single morning (an uncontrollable fear that usually starts before I get depressed, I may add) or maybe both. It's so amusing how my mind works to be honest. I started observing people in the plane, the ones beside me and the ones who are going back and forth to stow their stuff or whatever.  Then this sudden thought about my depression laced my mind like a orange streak during sunset. I thought exactly this "Hey I don't feel so sad or miserable despite of barely having an hour of sleep after the tedious packing last night. This is good—this is great." And I just found it strange because there were times when I longed for the tide of melancholy—that despicable depression every time I am in the normal mood. At first, I was almost certain I have gone insane. Or totally depressed. Or both. I mean who wants to be ******* depressed all the time and then go through emotional calm and then the ******* cycle recycles itself like trash made to look pretty but when consumed gets to become trash again. Who ******* does? But I also realized I must have come to this sense of familiarity with the pain that drove me to the edge for almost a month now. It really becomes your home when you lose sense of yourself and the only thing comforting you is that very pain which have wrecked your home.

And all too suddenly, these thoughts just made me half hysterical half teary-eyed. Because at that moment as I waited for the plane to ******* trace the runway already ( I get impatient, yes) I felt grateful. The word really is grateful. Not even happy, delirious or euphoric. Just a hell lot of gratefulness. I find myself thanking this moment of just grasping happiness even if I know for sure I'll probably get depressed tonight again (as per usual). Before I'd get hyper and just laugh like there is nobody to mind me but I never felt this thankful ever. I started looking back to those moments of happiness where I get to believe in greater things again. Where I'd worry for a second then dismiss it saying "Ah this hardly matters, so ***** it." After being drenched in so much unexplainable pain and going through this high and low almost everyday, I've come to a conclusion that I never really appreciated those moments of peaceful glee as much as I am at that moment. And I thought hat could have never been possible if I wasn't crying myself for nights, being vulnerable and seemingly weak to a bunch of people, admitting to myself that I was losing interest in life itself. It was like going through a warzone unarmed but after the trail has left the danger, you start feeling a wave of relief—a recovery after the storm.

When I started accepting the fact that I am a person with a high tendency to get depressed, I also came to accept that I've always been a sensitive person. It hardly ever shows, to be quite honest. I can appear to people as uncaring or too self-absorbed or reserved but it's only because I **** at the art of self-expression. Really, since 1995. I'd keep it all to myself although inside I am shattering. And people would have no idea because I NEVER SHARE. But ever since I was a child, I'd get these instances of melancholy simply because I can see other people (who I should not even care about) twist in pain or I'll see so much injustice that it makes me feel indignant or I can see something is wrong with someone the moment I talk to them. Things just affect me in ways that I could never understand. Add to that is my defining characteristic of being a ******* introvert. My introversion has given way to me becoming a highly introspective person. So I'd think about life a lot, question life a lot, wonder why we are as we are and some existential **** like that.

I hated all the pain I went through these past few weeks. I am a person who is independent and knows herself completely. But when depression hit me, I was clouded in a mist of ambiguity. I dont know anymore who I was, I could not understand y emotions, i could not feel happy when I am doing the things that I love. It just ****** me into a black hole. There were times that sleep was my only remedy. Partly because I wanted to escape the loneliness, the anxiety, the self-loathing and my entire body refusing to cooperate and partly because I felt tired all the ******* time and even if I slept for an entire day, I would still feel the same when I wake up. But today, I felt happy that I went through all of them. Even if there was one time that I gagged my mouth with pillow because I was about to scream in so much pain— (thank god I was alone in the room) and afraid that I might scare the other dormers away. That night as my eyes felt like rivers ,I swore that I will not let this control me. I swore that someday I'll find out why the hell this happened to me. And then I cried even more because even when all that pain was overpowering me, I still had a little hope left in me. I felt like I found a fragment of myself again. That somehow I wasnt totally *******. It was absolute contradiction but at that time I existed in between the two polar opposites of myself.

Depression is like being on the edge of a very steep cliff. You're about to fall, constant fear stops you but beneath your feet, you see wonder from beyond. You see possibilities. You see a town from somewhere far where there is so much life. You see a forest from afar and it seems so wonderful you start believing in good things again.I've  come to remind myself that I had a family, I had friends but most importantly, pain is a great wake up call. I thought love is a great unconquerable emotion. I severely underestimated pain and how it can change people. Pain brings wounds that either scar us for life or bring a different perspective. I'd say I've seen the worst possible side of me when I got depressed. It was scary and it makes you hate yourself. You get repelled because it's dark and ugly. But on the flip side, I saw how pain has made me see that after all that, I could make it. In fact, everyone can. I also peered into the mind of depressives and it was extremely helpful since I have good friends who have been cursed with this disease (they were suicidals even). I'd lack the understanding when they shared their experiences to me before but now I was slapped in the face for even considering to call them selfish or cowards. They are not. I feel like I need to tell people this because depression can only be understood when you have been there. People have different ways of handling pain which my mom likes to call 'pain threshold'. Some have it deeper, some can only contain pain in few doses. I wanted to give each and everyone who had ever been depressed a big hug because nothing is worse than losing meaning in life. And my heart goes out to each and everyone of us who caged all that pain and somehow moved forward despite the odds. Quite honestly, I would have preferred being hit by a car and be confined for more than a month than go through all that sadness and meaninglessness where hell is walking right inside you/strong desire to want to give up on life altogether/strong desire to be shaken off by society as an outcast and that won't even matter. You'd literally want to do anything just to take away all that hopelessness and misery. But at the same time you're too tired to do anything. Most terrific **** I have been so far, just ******* terrific.

*I wrote the first part of this entry when I was on the plane going home. Tonight, I finished it with a heavy heart. I am depressed again despite being with people that I love most and engaging in lovely talk with them just a couple of hours ago. My emotions are being strung along by someone other than myself. My distractions are no longer working—I might need new ones.  As I looked back to parts of this entry I realized that this condition gives me brief chances where everything is peaceful. I just hold on and wait for those chances. I've seem to tolerate this better now and my mood swings reveal a general pattern of anxiety first, normalcy then on to depression. Sometimes there are specific times, sometimes it's all random. This has been unnecessarily long but I have only been comforted by two things during my depression: music and writing. Although to be quite honest, writing can also cause me to be more depressed as I have lost my energy and motivation to write even when the other side of my brain cries in frustration because I do love writing so much. Music on the other hand gives me a lot of hope for some reason and a form of escape from all the unwanted thoughts. Some songs do make me more melancholic but my interest in music has changed ever since I started getting depressed.

It seems to be
That at one time
No one cared about the sewers
The ****** and manic-depressives
The postman who exploded his brains
Tragedy in shadows
Pieces of people

Romanticized, it is
To die in effortless affliction
To die in parts
The end is perilously attractive
Cradling the unknown
As for love
As for hope
Happiness, joy
Savagely attacked
It is too easy
To be sad

Hi my names Lauren and I love things that can't speak.

Hi my names Lauren and I love things that break their own bones and choke on their teeth.

Hi my names Lauren and I see kids with bruises, kids with no excuses, kids with cuts, kids howling at the moon like mutts. They're begging to get out of their skin and into a more feral suit, they want their bite to be worse than their bark, hang themselves in the park, finally be noticed, glowing smiles like that of an alley cat, spat out blood last week, "must've been the pills, that **** kills."

Hi my names Lauren and I forget my name a lot. I write it in the hearts of heartfelt hoodlums, not so brave victims, mothers' worst nightmares, mothers who don't care, boys who dare set themselves on fire, light it up ******, you aren't getting any brighter.

Hi my names God and I ****** up.

Hi my names Lauren and I talk to the dead. They tell me about the papers they keep under the bed, poems no one reads and suicide notes with things unsaid.

Hi I'm Lauren and the dead can't dance when they speak. They're not too steady on their feet, dangling from rafters with chairs beneath.

Hi I'm Lauren and I ****** up, you ****** me up. You won't talk to me, and he won't look at me, and dad can't stand me and mom tries her best to understand me and I once hit my head so ******* the wall I fainted. Yes mom, it was on purpose. I thought we painted that pretty picture in my blood months ago.

Hi I'm Lauren and I write poems that don't lie about the truth, I write poems about depressives, lost boys, starving boys, ****** boys, and my boys. Those all go hand in hand. I write poems about heartache, bone break, undertake, and personality fake. These are all the same. I write poems about things I've seen, things I've done, things I've ******, and threads that were spun into ropes tied into nooses and put behind the pile of ***** laundry on the floor. I write about pills in dressers and knives in scabby skin and how much I hate god but love his children and how my brain is broken and I'm still stuck hoping I'll be left with something to write about next time I forget my name but can remember yours.

Why are depressives good dancers?
because
they're always getting down.

Stereotyping often portrays poets as being brooders, loners,psychotics, manic-depressives, addicts, or just plain "nuts." In other words (in terms of their peers), "normal people." They should be 'French', or know at least three French words, and be able to wear a striped, long sleeve pull-over, topped with a black beret(neck-scarf optional). Should be able to write stuff no one understands, yet readers will pretend they do as long as it reads and sounds 'intellectual'. Must be able to stomach the taste of Espresso, which must come from Starbucks, and enjoy the so-called 'Bohemian' life style. Must be able to sit comfortably with a set of bongo drums between their knees, and continue living in the 50's, the 'Beat Generation." "Maynard G. Krebbs" is their idol.

Yiska feels as if
she's about to
split open
and her mind

pour out
all her thoughts
and feels like
she's about to *****

but she doesn't
now she feels
as if she's constipated
and the thoughts

and words
won't budge
and the mind quack
(psychiatrist)

sits opposite her
at his desk
and she sits
cross legged

staring at him
and out
of the window
behind him

she can see snow
falling
drifting slow
then fast

as if it can't
make up its mind
what to do
and on his desk

is a photograph
of a family group
of smiling faces
and she hates it

the smiling
that we are ok
and living well
kind of look

she says nothing
the words
have become
bunged up

in her head
and he talks
about ECT
about how it helps

depressives
and others
with mental
health issues

and all she wants
is to go back
to the locked ward
and sit

in the arm chair
by the window
and radiator
in her night gown

and think of nothing
just good old nothing
and wait until
Benny arrives

and sits beside her
and they both sit
and think of nothing
and nothingness

enfolds them
like a warm
fat mother
and they just

like to be
close to each other.

Thieving and burglary - deliberate
indulgent, ignorance, waste of opportunities - deliberate
drinking, loose morals, bad company, drugging - deliberate
lazy, stupidity, state dependency in viable health - deliberate
babies for welfare payments, employment avoiding - deliberate
hate, envy, jealousy, lies, slander, crimes, drunkenness - inadequacies
Racism, ignorance, small mindedness, pettiness, belligerence - Low scale inherent characteristics

Betrayal - engineered
Loss of employment and brilliant career ruination - engineered
alone and social isolation - engineered
lack of intimate relationship - engineered
Rudeness, screams, fractured relationship - engineered
economic stagnation - engineered
Physical limitations - engineered

In the woke civilisation of the great Island
Psychopaths Social and structural Engineers march in Red
In raving anodyne tones the entitled ivories do the twist
Please ignore all the listed deliberate glaring omissions above
No! you see in deluded grandeur
Its time for the blame game, its time for the blame game
Its all the fault of the immigrant
who studied and worked to make a better life
especially that black successful one
with everything just going well for him
we didn't boat him on on the Windrush
He's not cleaning our roads or in the factory
He's not fetching and wiping **** in the Hospital
He's not even into crime and supplying our drugs
No! No! No!
He is a leech and  a parasite
He is responsible for our miserable uninspiring life
Comrades, join us, the Revolution is now

They say I suffer, I have pain
How can I, I wonder
when its  all your engineered and dramatized work
of which I am not in the least responsible!
And you know it!
Narcissists, Psychopaths, Depressives, Mentally challenged loonies
We give you your Revolution, please enjoy the spoils!!!

They will come.
And it'll you.
It'll hit you because its the 21st century, the reality of the modern world. You and them; them and everything that surrounds them.
Like a pedestrian attempt, the government system is all at cost about change and more change and brainwashing.
The in and out assests duplicating the excruciating mantel of dead lives and lives at stake.
You will walk half-asleep doing things you think are important.
Like a baptized child, to sanitize the dirt is even pious to the church, but they will come to you
and expect you to write about them; them and everything that surrounds them.
A column of pathological liars, OCD's, manic depressives, and a row of *** positives is the table of modernism.
But its fine, until 24/7 never stop wishing to 11:11.
Like a house is fine without a home, you will at least feel you're not alone.
They will offer a god - in high buildings, in the streets, in your neighborhood; a fine narcotic charm
that will mend your mood. And then they will come to you.
You and them; the faces, the ideologies, the tattoos, the smell, the drugs, the skin; they will insist you to write about them.
And it'll hit you.
They're disgustingly beautiful.
Way of thinking - sound,
tattoos - artsy,
scent - morning's dew,
drugs - crystal and *****,
skin - cashmere of the richest kind.
Like faith, you are worm on bait in the modern world called 21st century.
They will come to you wanting you to write about them.
You and them; them and everything that surrounds them.

Those without a core
souls unknown even to themselves
flesh and blood that march along the lines
floating on waves like a fish  now sleeping with fishes
unable to know that not all float along with the western winds

In this setting sun and days
lives those who believe Coronation Street is real
do not voice it's celluloid drama or they tell you, you're mad
do not blame for minds not tendered but fed and pastured free range
finds gumption and intrinsic assimilation is but idle pursuit to them

Point and they go, wish is command
sing a love story and to all and sundry it's love forever
acquaintances of different persuasions become Romeo and Juliet
dare give an open honest look and empty minds says you strip them
how does an actress in dialogue show real empathy not there for role

How can planned roles and actions
unreal and plotted to achieve means dastardly ordained
be held as real and accepted as true when drama and chaos is aim
you then see that in a place were realness is a stranger to dim minds
anything is possible and as real as Coronation Street with no cameras

They talk love and have divorces high
noted for humour yet also the highest Depressives count
our word is our bond they say yet lying is abound in guises toned
Real truth is ring fenced and it's just believe what you believe mate
and we'll all believe and who goes out in the midday sun with dogs