Shut-Down

If, in person, I seem mute, it's not my intention. My mind is going a million miles per hour, screaming, but my lips don't move, my voice does not resonate. As I become more and more overwhelmed, my body starts to shut down, piece by piece, and my voice is quite often one of those things that just seems to 'turn off.' At the worst, I can become totally non-responsive, and yet consciously and fully aware (except that my eyes also may be closed.) I become trapped in a shell that is my body, struggling to move even a single finger. Fear and terror fill my mind and turn into a cyclonic fireball of utter self-loathing and destruction. But this is all inside. No one can hear it, and no one can hear me. I scream, but not a noise comes out. I can appear almost dead, breathing shallowly, unresponsive to most stimuli, unable to speak or move, eyes often closed. And yet... I'm still there. My mind is still present. And so I am simply left there to listen, to feel, to hear, to smell, to taste, and sometimes - if I can manage to open my eyes - to see. But, with all of these things, I still cannot seem to interact with the world around me. Others begin to feel or treat me like I no longer exist, or like I'm some petulant poltergeist trying to nudge, pull, squeak - trying to make any kind of outward communication possible.

Many people can be left speechless. This is a whole other thing. Imagine being an android, but believing that you're a human. Suddenly, as if by remote control, your arms stop working. Someone just turned them off. No matter what you try to do, you can't move them voluntarily. Next, your legs. You collapse, unable to hold your own body up. You try to call for help, but your voice also got turned off. You have trouble moving your jaw, your lips, and your eyes get extremely heavy. All of your nerves still work, so you can feel every sensation, you are present of mind, but trapped inside of the cage that your body has become, unable to be heard, unable to do anything at all. It's isolating... Dreadful... One of the only things I can think of that might embody the true Hell.

Love..?

Dead.

Joy..?

Dead.

Hope..?

Dead.

Rationality..?

Dead.

Reality?

Dead.

People get divorced over this. Realities become so warped that it infects the actualities of the reality. What is depression? The brain... literally - and I do not mean figuratively, but literally - dying. Brain cells start decaying and dying, neural activity lessons, the spiritual and emotional centres of the brain undergo a brownout where all positivity is severed from consciousness. The happiness, joy, and love being stripped from you, and so suddenly, shreds your heart apart. You question everything you thought was true, and begin to doubt everything.


"Do I really love her?"

"Is this what I want for my life?"

"I'll never be happy again."

"Everything hurts."

"There's no forward, backward, left or right. I'm lost."

"I'll never get out of this dungeon!"

"Kill me. Please, kill me."

"I want to stab myself in the head with a pitchfork."

"I don't want you to see me like this!"

"Help... Please... Help me."

"I'm already dead inside. Just end my misery."

"No future... There is no future..."

"No one loves me."

"AHHHHHHHH!"

"I scream and scream, but nobody hears me."

"Trapped, locked in this cage. I can't get out. I'll die here."

"I can't take it anymore!"

"The world is better off without me."

These are the things people with major depression truly feel, think, and sometimes even say.