“I have studiously tried to avoid ever using the word ‘madness’ to describe my condition. Now and again, the word slips out, but I hate it. …’Madness’ is too glamorous a term to convey what happens to most people who are losing their minds. That word is too exciting, too literary, too interesting in its connotations, to convey the boredom, the slowness, the dreariness, the dampness of depression.”
Elizabeth Wurtzel, From Book “Prozac Nation”
I never really saw my illness stripped bare of everything, standing naked before me. I’ll admit it is interesting at first, but oh so dull and tedious afterwards. My depression has become like a cheap whore, in a red mini skirt. At first, your interest is piqued by the novelty and the outrageousness of her, but once you get up close, face-to-face, she is ugly and sad. Her face is haggard and worn, and she smells like cheap whisky, stale cigarettes and too much perfume.
I think it is fairly typical for us, to want to know that something is special about us. There’s a strange, perverse gratification when we find out our diagnosis. But really, deep down and soon to be quite obvious… she’s really nasty.

Depression is trying to kill you
Ugly and mean, she wraps herself around you, like an Amazon python. Her muscles relax and contract, dulling you into a daze, and soon you can’t move; you’re immobilized. You are at her mercy and she intends to devour you.
Depression has completely lost its romantic flair for me, and all I see is ugliness and sadness. A life full of hollowness and black, bitter nastiness. In our old farmhouse, the cellar was extremely frightening to me, and even with the lights on it was awful. I always ran for dear life up the steps, shaking and heart pounding with terror. It was dark, damp and a strange place. Evil was down there, and it wanted to destroy me.
I don’t know what’s going to happen next. But I am older and have become a realist, and you know what? I’m still afraid of the dark and I must run to Jesus.
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