Member-only story
This is what depression looks like:
I was standing in the shower and realized I was looking at a picture of myself. In this picture, I know there’s a world out there with the sun rising and all, but it’s heavily obscured by my state of being. I’m lost in what the Buddhists call “self-cherishing,” only able to feel how I feel — lost in my own pain, fatigue and listlessness.
And it burrows down through multiple layers, beginning with how terrible I feel, and ending with why. The million whys that constitute the house of my suffering.
At some point, I couldn’t take it anymore. This was a pivotal moment. I could go way further down. Or I could just go outside.
The view (the very same one I was looking at from the upstairs shower) looked completely different. That’s because I had to go downstairs, open the slider, step outside and look up. Right away, the whole of the sky gave me its face. And I noticed a few things.
The massive trees stand where they stand. They reach up because that’s what they do, not because it’s worth it or because someone told them to or because they thought people would like them better if they did. Their branches just go out and up.
