I only broke my soul

          I am paralysed. I can’t get up. My limbs don’t want to move. I blink once, I blink twice. Is the world still turning? Everything seems foggy. How do I find my way? Is this poison in my stomach? It hurts so much I think I’m gonna vomit. I toss and turn in my bed. I take painkillers, but nothing helps. Will this pain ever go away? Will there always be nails in my body, pining me down to the bed, stopping me from moving forward? Will I always be stuck in this darkness? Is there a future for me? Is there any present?

            I didn’t break my bones, I broke my soul. My eyes are okay, my sense of direction works just fine. I lost my life. I lost rational thinking. I don’t have stomach ulcers. It’s fear and stress, turned into a little monster, eating me from the inside. Bad genes didn’t do this to me. I didn’t have a bad accident. It’s not one of my stories. It’s not my imagination. This. Is. Real.

Why won’t you listen to me? Am I just a body to you? Is there nothing in me beside bones, meat and skin? If I really broke a bone you would run to help me. You would recommend a treatment. But when my soul breaks you say that I overreact. I am making this up. It happens only in my head. Get yourself together – you say lightly. Stop caring so much – you roll your eyes. When I speak openly – you diminish my pain. You get irritated. When I don’t talk about it – you ask: Why are you so weird? One step ahead, two steps behind. You want to know, but don’t want to understand. You look at me, but you don’t want to see me.

            Sometimes I’m glad it is the way it is. Because it means that bad thoughts never crept into your head without notice. Your breath never becomes short, every time, when somebody mentions this one, specific thing that pulls the wrong trigger in your brain. Your insides never fell over because of stress. When you go to bed, you sleep. When you wake up, you are awoken. You don’t fear for tomorrow. You feel calm. Your soul never hurts. Maybe that’s why you doubt. Understate. Stop worrying so much – you say, looking at my tears. If it was so easy, don’t you think I would? Why are you doing this to yourself? You are mental! – you say, seeing the scars on my forearm. Maybe I am. But do you really think screaming it to my face will help me?

I wish I could show you my soul. Show you the band-aids I put on it. Teach you how to bandage it. Show you the scars that It wears with pride. Scars that scream: I am still here. I made it. I wish I could tell you, how your words hurt it. How I soothe it. About the darkness that surrounds. It. About the ways I fight it. But you do not want to hear or understand. You don't even want to try.

Try not to use your robotic words. Try not to spit them without thinking. It really doesn’t cost that much. Think. Instead of saying: You overreact. Ask: How can I help? Instead of giving me meaningless advice, ask If I need someone to be there. Don’t categorize. Try to listen. Believe my words. Read about it. Educate yourselves. Don’t look for reasons. Don’t ask: Why? Maybe there is one. Maybe there isn’t. You have to learn that those things may come from the thin air.

And depression
Is

A disease.

Anxiety. Psychosis. Schizofrenia. Paranoia. Anorexia. Bulimia. All of those are diseases. They don’t touch the body. They touch the soul and mind. Those fleeting parts of us, that we take for granted. This is not our imaginations. Realize it. Sometimes it takes next to nothing to destroy somebody’s life.  It also doesn’t take much to save it. Your words can hurt or heal. All you have to do is choose them wisely. All you have to do is think. Don’t ignore somebody’s pain, just because you haven’t endure it. You never know if one day it won’t get to you.