#neveralone

Can you define depression? Not a text book explanation but put into words what you feel, hear, see, think during your darkest moments?  Most people cannot do this and those that do not suffer from depression cannot understand what cannot be explained.

I have tried, most in depth to my mom, to explain to those close enough to ask, what my depression is like. Lets try here. Close your eyes and imagine being in the darkest dark you've ever experienced, mulitply that by a hundred. Now, imagine yourself reaching out, in front of you, behind you & to each side and feeling nothing, anywhere. You can't really hear things well, sound doesn't cut thru the thickness of the dark that has enveloped you. So, you can't really hear anything, you can't feel anything and you can't see anything. What are you left with? Your thoughts & emotions.

The worst of the thoughts & the emotions, for me, is the lonliness. Thoughts: she doesn't really love you, he's mostly annoyed by you and so on. These thoughts feed the emotion of lonliness: I can't go to thier house, they only invited me out of obligation; on and on it goes. For me, the lonliness is suffocating, overwhelming, and truly devastating. It can become so paralyzing that I cannot get out of bed for fear of realizing just how alone I am. I had someone very close to me tell me about a year & a half ago, "Chris, God is always with you, even at your loneliest".

This has tumbled around my brain during all this time. Then, about 2 weeks ago, I was hit hard with the full impact of that statement. I knew, to the deepest part of my soul, that I have never been alone, especially at my darkest. So, my rainbow has been #neveralone. I have been using this tag on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram whenever a qote or picture reminds me that dark and light cannot occupy the same space. That to make it through the darkness, I have to focus on the light of God's promise that He will never leave me alone.

Whether it's a picture, a quote, a verse, a person, a memory; no matter what brings you light, when you are struggling with the dark, focus on your light until you start breathing againg and remember that you are #neveralone. All my love, me.