In the Stranglehold of Depression: A Personal Account of Sadness

I once tried to write creatively about it and could only come up with one short quote: "Depression. It settles in like a snow storm. It rushes. But in a trickling, subtle way so that when it's all built up and surrounding you, you feel like you didn't even see it coming."

In therapy sessions I used to refer to it as "the force", the depression. I described the unsettling feeling as oddly identical to the way one's stomach area feels after doing a few too many sit ups. Tight, nervous, almost tickley in a mocking way that isn't in the least bit funny. That was how it felt, all the time, for years. That intense feeling of mental and almost physical paralysis that would strike when I was most vulnerable- that is, right upon waking up in the morning to begin a new day, just prior to confrontations with the backlash of my multiplying failures and mistakes due to my persistently sad state of mind, and right before having to face situations that I found particularly fearful, which for myself, over time, ended up consisting of any activity that required me to face the outside world.

Depression. It's scary, it's mean and it is absolutely relentless. It grabs you by the throat and squeezes you until you can't even beg it to stop and the only way it might ever let you go is if you have enough will to live and can muster up all the strength you can gather, no matter how weak and defeated you feel, so you can utilize some of your other resources to stand up in your (throat's) behalf. Such as your right foot.