How not to kill the depressed…

You’re walking through a very long tunnel. Or maybe wading through this tunnel. Because walking can be easy. This movement is not. So… You are wading through this tunnel but you don’t know how you got there. It feels as though you fell asleep and you woke up in the tunnel. It is full of viscous oil and mud. You are lower lip deep in this muck. You don’t know how got here, but here you are. You’re trying to run so you can at least see where the light at the end of the tunnel is. At this point, you will even appreciate the light of an oncoming bullet train at high speed.

Think of the times you have found yourself jump up out of a crazy nightmare and you wake up and everything is back to normality. In this nightmare, you are already awake but it feels like you should be waking up. Claustrophobic, debilitating, loud, drowning, painful, silent, lonely, hurting, fear, sadness, invisible… All wrapped up into one emotion. Then comes the well-meaning question, “How are you today?” – And you want to run and hide, because if you say, “I’m fine”- You’re doing yourself a disservice and you sink deeper into the dark tunnel of viscous, oily-muddy-muck. This is just one out of millions of feelings of what depression does to a human spirit. This is my own interpretation. You ask someone else to tell you theirs and it is different. We all deal with it in different ways. We will tell you how to help us get to the end of the tunnel where the bright sun is. Don’t be the train that bulldozes us with questions and well-meaning comments of how we should get it together. It is not your place. Your place is a seat at the table of learning how to be compassionate without judgment and having all the answers. You will kill us and come and mourn at our funerals.

frank-blog I do not own this image.