It's bewildering-it doesn't seem odious on the surface and maybe that's why it is what it is; it's hard to see Depression come for you, even if it's come for you before.

...since it was the source of a years' long depression, I wanted to move to healing.

I felt trapped because I felt if I said something, even hinted at it, the rest of me would be negated. The things I did manage to succeed at would just be as if they were never accomplished and by the time I was catching on to how bad a state I was in, I had yet to grasp that hardly anything positive or uplifting had been getting through the filter that broke me. The thought still makes me angry. The inevitable diminishing that those years weren't real, that their scars aren't real, angers me. Because they are very real.

I started this writing a little over ten months ago, using as it another tool to understand what happened. To understand where I am now, to wrap my Brain Things around why I think and respond in the ways that I do. I am thankful I don't feel like I'm listing in an ocean of nothing.

I write of my experiences, pointing out that this is not the rare occurrence of a one-sided story. It's the years' long ordeal that had many contributing factors, few of them reparative, many that goad my anger that this...stuff...took me away from the bright spots in my life, took my joy, and tried to bury me in a cycle of despair, confusion, and fear.