Depression is not something you could ever comprehend if you have not previously experienced it personally. It is one of the ugliest, most terrifying things to ever infect the human race, inflicting a death rate of about 43,000 people annually and 25 times more than that in attempts, it is a disease without a permanent cure, but with many temporary solutions. Depression is most comparable to being in a long tunnel; one without any light.. All you feel is dread and sorrow as certain death surely awaits no matter what happens. You are lost without a hope, you have nothing, you are nothing. All that exists in your life is dark, bleak, pointless, hopeless, or any variant of such. After all, what is the point in having a box of crayons if you cannot see the colours? They may as well all be black as void. Dark as night. Maybe even not exist at all?

Many people describe depression as sadness, yet that vastly hackneyed word barely scrapes the surface. An iceberg if you would, from the surface, outside the dark world of the sea, it may not look very large. In reality, that iceberg could run miles deeper and wider under the surface than anyone from above could imagine. Whether you may be on a boat, a plane, on foot, it is all still the same in the end. All you can see is the tip. The surface of the situation, a sample if you would.

It truly has no solution, no cure. Only knowledge yet to be comprehended. Tis like any other sickness, you don’t truly cure it, you just tap the needed knowledge to tolerate it. Depression can be warded off by piles of pills, hours of therapy, anything of the sort. The pills can buy time, and the therapy can teach us what we need, but how can you ever get a light of some sort into the tunnel if the entrance cannot be found? Even once you find the entrance, how could you know how to reach the darkest recesses? In a maze of hopelessness and desperation, any hope or help has little chance of success. However, the chance is still there. As immensely dark and endless as it can be, you can find a way through the maze. With enough effort, it can be done. The beast can be defeated. The reaper can be evaded. Even death itself can be warded off by enough determination. Yet you still ask yourself, “What actually is depression?” Depression is a chemical imbalance within the brain, however it is no small issue. It easily forces someone to live through a life more miserable and intolerable than any normal person could relate.

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Depression is terrifying. No matter how you perceive it, the most terrifying thing about it is not the sadness, not the miserable daily life, not the risk of losing too much. No, the scariest thing about depression is that is makes you stop caring. The whole reason humans live if due to a will to live, they have something to care for, something to miss them. When you stop caring, you have no tether to life, to earth, to anything. Balloons are easily utilized as a metaphor for depression/depressed people. The uncontrollable forces are trying to take them away, but they are tied down. They have a reason to stay, to not fall victim to the unknown. However, when depression gets bad enough, the string gets cut. They fly free, they give up. They simply let themselves go aimlessly, with no purpose anymore. No one seems to care enough to chase them and collect them, yet someone is going to be upset their balloon flew off. They cannot see that though, they can’t see the person wishing they still had their balloon, all they see is the fact that someone cut the string. Someone let them go, freed them to some, and didn’t care enough to keep them around. Bring some meaning to ‘life is short’ as well, balloons don’t last forever, but if they are taken care of, they will stick around for a good while. In the end all balloons go flat or get popped, but not all should get popped. They deserve to stay floating, to keep going, but if you realize how bleak life is as a balloon; merely floating around, tied by a string, life becomes meaningless. Peaceful bliss, something depression does not include in the package. It does include constant yelling at yourself and fights with inner demons. The endless battle with a nearly invincible foe.

Depression is not something to be taken lightly. As an incredible infectious and lethal endemic, this is not a joke, not some sick source of laughter. This is not something to be forgotten or left alone. This needs attention and it needs help just the people plagued by it. Nobody deserves to live a life where they would rather be dead than to take a chance at getting help. Those being very dire circumstances regardless what walk of life you come from. An existence nobody deserves. A fate worse than death, hence why it is deemed an ‘escape’ from the hell of depression.