"When I Surrender, The Dawn Arrives"

Despair is depression gone too far.

With depression the mind can wander to places. Places to unload blame. It can think. Not good thoughts, but thoughts. Thoughts can be guided. It can wander to a place of tears and a certain kind of release. Depression can be like a season that comes for a while and then goes. It isn't a pleasant experience but if held lightly, and with a guarded familiarity, it can be observed, like a bad storm from under a little bit of cover.

Despair isn't like that. Despair is being buried alive in a coffin. Every thought is a cul-de-sac without any room for a road. A dead end that snaps towards any tiny sense of a way out. If tears come they are dry. Searching for something, anything, to cry for. Despair is to a human being what desolation is to a landscape. And coming back from it, if you do, feels like a kind of miracle. Like playing Russian Roulette when all but one of the bullets is live. It's the success of not killing yourself. I wouldn't wish Despair on my worst enemy. I've been there once, and on the edge on several occasions.

This is useful stuff to know if you suffer from depression. Seriously. It makes it so important to not embrace the sorrow and sadness as though they are a part of yourself. They are not. They are sometimes the sirens of despair trying to lure you to a very dangerous place.

The good news is that we do have control of our thoughts. We can change the way we think. When we are in our right minds, we can learn to watch for the little signs that send us into depression. We can learn to watch the way our minds think and we can learn to mentally argue with the words of negativity and the resigned, listless attitude. We can talk to someone, not for pity, or to have our sorrow fed and nurtured. But to to receive support in the fight. We can simply distract ourselves with whatever it is that is capable of distracting us.

But sometimes, especially on the road to building new ways of thinking, we will still slip into depression. And sometimes that depression will  simply be a gentle sadness  reminding us that the world isn't always, or even often, right. And it can encourage us to make change for the better, not just in ourselves, but for the people and communities we are a part of. Which is good.

But don't let it hang around. Find ways of keeping yourself away from the edge. Please.



The line "When I surrender the dawn arrives" is from my song Sometimes I Cry - November 4th, 2013.