You can always tell when people are depressed. For some reason, it forces creativity into overdrive, as we fight to avoid or fight to destroy our demons. Nobody likes being around a depressed person, choosing to walk away or berate the sufferer, refusing to offer an unbiased helping hand. That genuine friend, that sympathetic, non-judgemental shoulder would do wonders, if the decency of man hadn't falled by the wayside some time ago.
My demons wait for me at the bottom, and along the sides, of the darkness that I call the Abyss. I have been here for so long that I don't remember what the light looks like, save for a glimmer or two as I struggle to climb. Some may know how hard it is to move upwards, as every hand you know clamors for you, delighting in pulling you back down again. Some seem to have made a game out of watching you climb so close to the surface, before reaching out and all but dropping you back down into the darkness. It's deep, but I've never touched the bottom. I'm sure I've come close, but the bottom is a place that I never wish to be - a place from which I will not return. I've struggled and fought to keep myself from that dreaded end, and I've come so close to making it out.
I thought I had it this time. It's the closest I've been in so long. I saw the sunlight and felt it's warmth. I again pushed upward, my strength renewed by hope. But at the surface, I reached out just as those evil hands - the hands of the uncaring and the self-centered - reached up. I looked up, forgetting...again...that blind trust is never true trust. However, when reaching from a pit of pure darkness, keep in miind that we are always blind. I saw that hand - I needed that hand - to reach out for me, and to clasp my own, but the hand would have nothing of it.
Tonight, I begin my descent once again, struggling to fight those hands that seem to delight in keeping me in the darkness. But that hand at the top - the one who refused to help a single, needing soul - would just as soon have been in the pit than lend a truly genuine hand. And it is even safer, at times, not to reach out among such a concentration of uncaring callousness, less they drop you right back, dead center, into the abyss.
And as, once again, I struggle and fall, I don't want this to be seen as a poor attempt at self-pity, which is the reason that so many of us are where we are. Instead, I just wish to convey the pain we feel as that helping hand pulls away, and as we hear the cackles that eminate from the depths that await us. Help is all we ask for. Support is all we need. And support without being asked is, for most of us, but a myth. We don't need anybody else to tell us to snap out of it. The world's beaten you to that one. But truly asking how one can help, or going out of your way to show that you genuinely care, goes a long way. Hope is what we need, but false hope is what will kill us in the end. Dreams are easier to shatter than glass, as the abyss grows deeper, and as the hands of those around us clamour for the opportunity to drag us below, almost fighting over who gets to pull us into the darkness.
Provide a little company, without a word about snapping out of it. Do something unexpected and incredible because you want to do it for us, instead of simply appeasing yet another coping method. Be patient with us and give us that hand when we need it. We all know that there are far too many hands whose light comes from keeping others down. My only plea would be that the hand you offer be genuine and trustworthy. If it's not, don't offer it. Nobody, Nobody could ever imagine how much good a true friend does until they find that friend who is willing to be there for you, before a second thought crosses her mind.
Unfortunately, most of us may ever live in the darkest depths of the one place from which we so long to free ourselves. With but a hand to pull us away from the depths, for once. I've longed for but one hand, though I finally believe that I have resigned myself to my fate. So many people out there have so much to give. Unfortunately, they're the ones you walk over, refusing to look down - unless it is on them - as they sink slowly, screaming, into the darkness, into the depths. God dammit! Give them a fucking hand!
My demons wait for me at the bottom, and along the sides, of the darkness that I call the Abyss. I have been here for so long that I don't remember what the light looks like, save for a glimmer or two as I struggle to climb. Some may know how hard it is to move upwards, as every hand you know clamors for you, delighting in pulling you back down again. Some seem to have made a game out of watching you climb so close to the surface, before reaching out and all but dropping you back down into the darkness. It's deep, but I've never touched the bottom. I'm sure I've come close, but the bottom is a place that I never wish to be - a place from which I will not return. I've struggled and fought to keep myself from that dreaded end, and I've come so close to making it out.
I thought I had it this time. It's the closest I've been in so long. I saw the sunlight and felt it's warmth. I again pushed upward, my strength renewed by hope. But at the surface, I reached out just as those evil hands - the hands of the uncaring and the self-centered - reached up. I looked up, forgetting...again...that blind trust is never true trust. However, when reaching from a pit of pure darkness, keep in miind that we are always blind. I saw that hand - I needed that hand - to reach out for me, and to clasp my own, but the hand would have nothing of it.
Tonight, I begin my descent once again, struggling to fight those hands that seem to delight in keeping me in the darkness. But that hand at the top - the one who refused to help a single, needing soul - would just as soon have been in the pit than lend a truly genuine hand. And it is even safer, at times, not to reach out among such a concentration of uncaring callousness, less they drop you right back, dead center, into the abyss.
And as, once again, I struggle and fall, I don't want this to be seen as a poor attempt at self-pity, which is the reason that so many of us are where we are. Instead, I just wish to convey the pain we feel as that helping hand pulls away, and as we hear the cackles that eminate from the depths that await us. Help is all we ask for. Support is all we need. And support without being asked is, for most of us, but a myth. We don't need anybody else to tell us to snap out of it. The world's beaten you to that one. But truly asking how one can help, or going out of your way to show that you genuinely care, goes a long way. Hope is what we need, but false hope is what will kill us in the end. Dreams are easier to shatter than glass, as the abyss grows deeper, and as the hands of those around us clamour for the opportunity to drag us below, almost fighting over who gets to pull us into the darkness.
Provide a little company, without a word about snapping out of it. Do something unexpected and incredible because you want to do it for us, instead of simply appeasing yet another coping method. Be patient with us and give us that hand when we need it. We all know that there are far too many hands whose light comes from keeping others down. My only plea would be that the hand you offer be genuine and trustworthy. If it's not, don't offer it. Nobody, Nobody could ever imagine how much good a true friend does until they find that friend who is willing to be there for you, before a second thought crosses her mind.
Unfortunately, most of us may ever live in the darkest depths of the one place from which we so long to free ourselves. With but a hand to pull us away from the depths, for once. I've longed for but one hand, though I finally believe that I have resigned myself to my fate. So many people out there have so much to give. Unfortunately, they're the ones you walk over, refusing to look down - unless it is on them - as they sink slowly, screaming, into the darkness, into the depths. God dammit! Give them a fucking hand!
aprilcot:
Wow, this is amazing!! You have talent!!