Dear Depression,

here you are, consoling my heartbreak, filling the empty spaces of where my dreams, where my love for life and my faith in humanity once had nested.

Here you are, keeping me company in my hollow moments. You come to protect me, to numb me from the pain, yet you debilitate me and erode my accomplishments and stun my growth and progress.

For months, I've tried to banish you and you brought on a friend I've never met, panic attacks so brutal and paralyzing, I wanted to rip open my own skin, and jump out of my own body, anxiety so blood ridden, I felt my body was not my own. You take my psyche, you take over my physical motions, you take over my physiology and my hormones... ...

A friend asks, "can you learn to live with it for a while?" Yes, I don't have a choice. Either you drive me to death, or I live with you, I dwell with you, like a resentful spouse in an abusive marriage, I put up with you. You hold me hostage with hypersomnia and fatigue, I feel like a drugged hostage forced to speak into a camera. Putting on a smile for friends and family, while you abuse and wrangle me.