Depression is insidious. It forms like a fog in your brain, obscuring your life and your feelings so slowly that you don’t even notice. You loose your way, you can’t see where you are and eventually you loose yourself. In the USA 21 million people experience depression at any given moment. That is a number that eclipses the total population of many countries! In 2022 Chile had less than 20 million people. This is a huge number of people whose quality of life is severely compromised, often to the point where they simply cannot function. Here is how I experienced it.

Like the slow decay of leaves turning into soil,
your visits doggedly exaggerate life’s turmoil.
Like lazily accumulating clouds obscuring sunlight,
your influence grew every time I let you in at night.

I did not realise you silently settled in my mind 
until I felt my hope and peace twisted together in a bind.
Your presence subtly, slowly, changed my disposition 
so insidiously that I never saw this developing condition.

Life lost its lustre and it was all I could do to muster
enough energy and fire to fake feelings and desire.
I could not stand that which I used to find grand and planned,
life tasted bland and I considered death by my own hand.

Every day felt the same with my mind racing but my body lame.
I believed this would stop, with insight or change, that never came.
I did not want to sleep, and when I did I couldn’t get out of bed,
despair and overwhelming helplessness flooded through my head.

My dark passenger filled me with dread, despair and sorrow,
and often I cried quietly for myself and fear of tomorrow.
One day she was temporarily away, and in a moment of clarity
I called my doctor with celerity, to save my life and sanity.

It took a while, but one day my smile came out of hiding
like the cloud-blighted sun, rising and again brightly shining, 
burning away obscuring clouds and pushing the darkness out of sight;
abolishing the depressing dark night.

Now I can see, now I am free, my mind again occupied only by me! 
The drawn curtains pulled down and my life anew with light adorn, 
free from doubt and fear and self-inflicted scorn!
Don't wait, don't postpone, ask for help and reclaim your home!