An Ode to My Depression On Our 6 Year 9 Month Anniversary

This poem was written a few months before my 20th birthday. At the time I was trapped in an abusive relationship, depressed and suicidal. Ironically, around this time I wrote my toxic boyfriend a loving poem for our anniversary.

It seems like my own version of Sylvia Plath's Lady Lazarus, looking back on my history with depression and how close I got to ending it all. Its scary and maybe painful for others to see but that was me at that time. I'm not going to feel ashamed or deny it. I wish none of it ever happened but that's not how life works.

I can gladly say that my mental health has improved since then but the pain in this poem is still very real to me. Its a reminder of how bad it has gotten and how far I have come.

TRIGGER WARNING: DEPRESSION, SELF-HARM, OVERDOSE, SUICIDE

If you are struggling with depression, suicidal thoughts or stuck in an abusive relationship please reach out for help. You deserve it.

An Ode to My Depression On Our 6 Year 9 Month Anniversary

I don’t know when you began

Some time when I was 13

When I started to shred myself to pieces

Not just in the mind but in the flesh

But I know when you peaked

Just before my 16th birthday

You had done your work

Thoughts of speeding cars and deep dark waters

Turned to multiple pills

I knew I wouldn’t die but I hoped it would hurt

Turns out I couldn’t even get that right

No pain except the superficiality on my wrists

And the notions to my mum that all was not right

With her only daughter

They tried to make it right with conversations and empty pills

But I still wished I was a good enough depressive

To have been hurt not just humiliated

I still can’t open up even now

To my one true shot at love

He languishes in my silence as an act of selfishness

Making things difficult to get attention

A way to hurt and punish him

But the truth is

The only way I have been able to express myself

Is through the scars you can see on my thighs

As he has stopped me they will fade in a matter of years

And if I keep taking pills

And talking when the system has time for me to talk

And pleasing my man

Will never return

The woman from the system categorised them as superficial

Without hospitalisation and stitches which hurt

It will be like you were never here depression

The dark keeper of my heart

My closest confidant

The secluded hole I crawled into

My lover and my hater

My muse and my stunter

My overwhelming and my emptiness

The only pain I have had to suffer as a white privileged straight woman

For what am I but a depressive

What was the girl supposed to be before you seduced her

My scars are my identity

If I don’t keep them up they will fade

And I will be lost

Because I can’t go deep enough

I’m a weak depressive

But I am dedicated

Don’t leave me with happiness

She is unfamiliar to me

She hasn’t been there through everything

She doesn’t understand

I don’t know how to live with her

Like I do you

I truly am addicted to pain

Self-inflicted bleeding

Holding on to a mental illness

Holding on to the memories

That anyone else would destroy as soon as they could

Depression you were right I am a bad person

And I deserve pain and everyone hates me and what is the point of even fucking trying