November Woods

My first breath of fresh air... it felt as if I'd just been reborn. My body felt foreign, aching from withdrawal. Withdrawal from fear and panic and an anxious state that had become my daily norm. That breath was like a blizzard of Euphoria. Death seemed peaceful, but now I'm debating whether that's true anymore. Perhaps it was knowing I'd taken things too far, perhaps it was the choking from holding in my tears. No, it was the depression painted as safe comfy chairs in a high rise building where the doors are forever locked by something more than polished brass. Where the walls are neutral, brown with paintings of trees and the doctors are waiting down the hallway. Perhaps it was the disgusting dim tinge of orange that made a sorry excuse for a light screaming out "There is no escape here!" that finally made me break. As I walked towards the exit sign passing what had become my very own personal maze of landmines,I breathed in, bringing me to life. It was time, time to escape this institution of depression. As I breath I could feel myself take what little control I could back over my mind. My conscious state no longer in fear, but rather determined to tread through the muddiness of pain. As I walked out, the doctor let me know there was nothing they could do for me, and I was glad. This place I was in housed dozens of people for days and prescribed them medicine as needed. But do any of them get better? If so, for how long? I wasn't willing to find out. When people suffer they get desperate, suffering is misery which leads to devastation of your ability to enjoy the pleasures of life. We all need help, some more than others. When you can't get that help there's a rabbit hole that ends with suicide, but it's no solution. People want to live, people want a reason to live. It is heartbreaking to have ever been in that place, even more to know there are people still there. When you can't do anything about it, it feels like a vicious cycle consuming your livelihood, your contentedness. Worst to know is it's in your head, but it does impact your body as well. It can make you sick, one moment you're fine and the next it's a tornado crashing into all that's been built. It should be treated but because it's in your head you feel like it's something you should be capable of fixing, and so you feel lost. I had lent my control over to a part of me that was unhealthy. A part of me that really wanted to drown in every aspect of the world. Drown myself out to avoid the pain, drown myself to avoid reliving my suffering. I had convinced myself that I was split, that I wasn't in control. Whenever I'd get a panicky feeling I'd want to hide, but why? What would happen if I didn't? What happens if I just lay here? My body won't get taken over and rise up and leave. However, a feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty lingers in the back of my head like a virus but why give in to it? Like any virus it wants to take over. There's comfort in the panic and discomfort in unfamiliarity. To paint the picture of what it's like you need to imagine a great big ocean where you become heavier. Slowly the ocean consumes you. Once you're down it keeps you down to feed off your suffering, that's one way of describing such a wicked experience. Never in my life have I'd ever felt completely emasculated, so defenseless. And that was my experience as I left that institute, drug-free, therapist free, while having regained myself, but for how long?