Depression fell on me hard in 2020.

It felt like a piano had fallen on me from on top of a five-story building.

The feelings landed on me with a massive thud. My heart skipped a beat that moment. Emotions welling up on me in tsunami style. They came out of nowhere or maybe they came from everywhere, but I only noticed them.

Little by little, I closed myself off from friends, outings, shopping; I stopped my life and became a recluse. Depression was my only friend. I could only spend time with it, listening only to its calling me into the darkness.

My world became tiny with no outings. Nowhere was safe, so I went to work and home and repeat over and over.

When I was home, all the curtains were shut. All the darkness surrounded me in such a deep dark depth that I could not see my way out of it. I had been swallowed by the depression and thoughts of suicide from the pain I held inside. I focused inward instead of out and I fell down a black bottomless hole. All around me, my pain was mocking me, my depression tempting me to kill myself. I almost listened to my only friend.

Each day seemed darker than the one before; each day tore a part of my heart off, and the depression ate it. I was slowly fading into nothingness. Not only was I not present, but I was looking forward to being gone. Pain was a daily visitor to my mind. It kept me focused on the negative and it kept me down in the gloom of my mind, only thinking of those self-harming behaviors.

No one wanted to deal with me and my world of death and depression. I was alone. I was ready to end it. Depression engulfed me in the flames of hell.

Soon, I was looking up ways to end one’s life. I stopped going to work; well, they suggested I take some leave and get help. No help was needed—just the internet and my depression. Life would soon end, and this feeling of dejectedness would be gone. Everyone would stop thinking of me, say I was too far gone for help. They did all they could. They vanished themselves, and with that, they vanished me as well to my island of depression and darkness.

Alone, I battled my mental health issue, but now I was done! I was ready to go from this dismal life—but then a hand reached out. A long-ago lost friendship appeared as if a ghost was with me.

This lost friend came to me and took my hand and told me I was not alone. We cried for what seemed like days. I finally showered at her insistence. She said I smelled, and we laughed. It was the first time since darkness engulfed me that I laughed.

She moved in with me, she paid my rent, she took over my bills, but the most important thing she did for me was to guide me to the help I truly needed. I started seeing someone who specialized in depression. With my therapist’s help and my friend who came out of the dark period of my life, I slowly put a toe back into the light. It did not get cut off, so over time, I emerged into the light again.

I knew the darkness and depression waited to take me down to hell again, so I knew I would continue to need support and I got it—from a long-ago lost friend who knew the battle I was fighting firsthand.

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