The Unescapable Epidemic

My phone alarm rings into my ear at 8:30 a.m. three days a week, but rarely do I actually get out of bed immediately. Some days it takes 20 minutes, some days I just don’t leave it at all. I like to blame the weather outside my window, or how late I stayed up doing homework. But I know, my roommate knows, everyone knows that it’s not one of my many excuses. I’m not lazy. I’m not a procrastinator.

I have depression. And some days it’s a bitch.

Or some weeks, or some months, I should say. Depression isn’t a switch that is flipped by certain situations or events. It isn’t something that gets turned on when it’s raining and turned off when it’s sunny. There’s no explanation or reasoning. It’s just there. And some days I’m better at fighting it off than others, or it’s nice enough to give me a break.

But a break isn’t a vacation, it’s not two weeks in Mexico with my best friends on the beach. It’s a half hour, a day, maybe half a week of solace. Solace spent wondering where my loathed companion is and when it’s going to come back. Solace spent squeezing out every last drop of my sudden motivation to get as much work done as I can, before my head is once again clouded. Solace spent analyzing why it’s leaving me alone. What exactly is keeping it away? How can I keep it away? I search for answers but they’re all wrong, because nothing can stop this monster once it comes trudging in.

There is something that keeps it at bay for just a little longer, and that’s music. The best remedy for my muddled brain is a night spent in front of speakers on a stage, hearing the songs that antidote me temporarily when I’m breaking down. My ringing ears and sore feet are the greatest reminder that just hours ago I was completely free, completely happy without a single cloud in the sky that is my brain. But like any other remedy, it’s effects wear off after so long and you’re left with the same terrible sickness.

But you still stack remedy upon remedy on it, hoping that something eventually will kill it. I stacked writing on, thinking it would be some great outlet to get everything out and clear my head. But some days I absolutely hate writing. Nothing is safe from this sickness, not even the things I love the most. It killed my love for art and every day I fear that it’s getting closer to killing my passion for writing. I think that with the more I write, the taller wall I’m building around it. So I push myself to constantly write, to keep stacking that wall up higher and higher so this monster can never get in. But pieces fall out, allowing this giant in for as long as it takes me to patch up the hole. Everyone knows that nothing is ever as strong as it was before it was broken and put back together. Especially when you do it over and over again. If this invader keeps making its way in, eventually there’s going to be no strength left to hold these walls together.

So I try to run away from the monster, instead of fighting it off and building up walls taller than the US Bank building. I take my writing and music with me, doing anything to keep them both safe from this epidemic. Even when it’s already suffocating me, I try to escape its inevitable despair. But its grip is one that can’t be lifted, not when it’s already made you so weak. Freshman year I ran home every weekend, thinking it would leave me alone. Two weeks ago, I went home because I could feel it creeping back towards me and I figured I should get a head start. But it still managed to clutch me. It always does. Because depression isn’t in my bed, my dorm, or my schoolwork. It’s in my brain and that’s where it’ll live for a while, as an unwanted guest not even paying rent.