CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of bipolar depression and suicide.
(Absolutely do not read this if you are not in a good headspace.)

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I thought i saw water coming up the banks, but it wasn’t water.

It was sewage.
And i am standing at the bottom of a septic tank.

I should have seen it coming, due to how much loss i’ve suffered this spring.
But i couldn’t see it, because of how much loss i’ve suffered this spring.

Depression is a rising tide of rage.
Like magma boiling inside a volcano.
Like the creeping death.

I’m gripped with it, shaking my own guts in a childish fist, impotent with fury.
The sadness, like the wax my grandmother poured on top of her jams and jellies.
Underneath it — sweet poison.

But all of the anger at the unfairness –the absolute torrent of shit–
has left me open to being absolutely and utterly done.

Breath seems like a waste of energy.
I took to my bed and swam in a bottle.
Cans of cold, fizzy oblivion.
I could breathe as long as i wasn’t sober.

Friendship — dead.
Dear friend — dead.
Dearest companion — dead in my arms.
Marriage — gasping, much like my sweet girl. I’m holding it in my arms, too, watching it labour for life.
And then to think my fondest wish had finally been granted, only to have it snatched away from me, YET AGAIN.

I’m tired. So tired. So done. So over all this work. All this work that comes to nothing. Over and over and over and fucking OVER AGAIN.
I’m sick of being at the mercy of this fucking malfunctioning brain.
Of being spirited away by little bits of myself that i cannot seem to fully control.
And i’m so over all of the chaos they bring.
The pall of inescapable death over me.
If it’s not one shitting on me, it’s the other.
And now, it is both, and i simply cannot.

I know that my brain in depression is a liar.
I know that the other people in my brain are traumatised children.
I know these things… but i am tired.
Tired of this acid anger and tired of this aching pain in my heart that climbs up into my throat and chokes me. Throttles me like an abusive lover.
My throat aches and my head pounds.
ALL THE TIME.

And i look around for love and goodness to come and help me–
BUT I CANNOT FIND IT.

A plan is forming in the back of my mind and i’m not even afraid.
I’m far too tired.

I put the plug in the jug and i pulled myself out of bed… For what?
FOR FUCKING WHAT?!
For the death of democracy and the rise of fascism?
For the demolition of human rights and the celebration of indecency?
For the millions who died for the good of all to have come to NOTHING?

To watch millions of overfed babies pat their bellies and yawn while everything good and right in the world is murdered in front of their vapid, staring eyes, like they’re watching a new show on Netflix?
Like all of this death and destruction is a show being produced for their entertainment by their putrid and foul god?

And so this is how my depression seeped in, like an odourless gas, filling my pores and dulling my senses… Now it can talk to me and i will hear its lies.
I have barely the will, let alone the strength, to fight it.

It says the problem has been me all along.
It says my friendship died because of me.
It says i’m being ridiculous about the death of my friend.
It says it’s my fault my dog died.
It says i’m the problem in my marriage and i should just go away.
It tells me i was a terrible mother and my son will never forgive me.
It tells me my children’s struggles are all my fault.

It’s telling me the world is shit and it’s only going to get worse.
It’s telling me everyone would be better off if i just wasn’t here anymore.

This is the worst depression i’ve had in 15yrs.
It’s clobbering me.
I am doing little things as i’m able, but it takes so much energy just to not die.
Just writing this has taken all i have.

I got up and made breakfast for my husband and son.
I made my husband’s lunch and got him off to work.
I stripped my bed to wash the sheets that are ripe with the smell of my recent detox.
I cleaned the kitchen and made conversation with my son as if i’m real. As if i’m alive.
I don’t feel alive.
I feel as if death already has me.
There’s a tumour in my brain and it’s eating me.
I know at this point that intervention might be necessary.
But there will be new doctors that think they know and old ones that KNOW they do…
And they’ll want to pump me full of drugs, and those drugs only make me sicker.
They’ll argue about my diagnoses while the nurses treat me like a thing because i’ve been there before. Because i have a long history…
And i’ll try to remind them to look at my doctor’s notes that say i’m extremely drug sensitive and that psych meds have only ever made me sicker…

And so depression gains a stronger hold and its voice becomes clearer.
Sensuous… Seductive…
It says, Why bother?
You’re tired, and everyone would be better off without you, and the world is total shit.

I’m drinking water.
I brushed my hair and put on clean clothes.
Right now i’m going to vacuum and then check the laundry.
Then i will put on some music and write for my other platform.
Later on, i will take my little Roly for a walk.
I’ll be making a nice dinner.

All i have now is the years of work i’ve done to handle my brain.
It’s all i have to hold on to, and it is a tender thread. A tendril.
I’m too tired for hope — all i have now is the work.
It sets me in motion like a wind-up doll.

I will eat something.
I will drink water.
I will go outside.
I will clean my body.
I will listen to music.
I will talk to somebody.
Well…
I will write.
Okay?
I will write.