Drowning In My Own Black Waters

I call it the darkness.

I fall into it, the darkness. It engulfs me all at once, and it's cold. I struggle against it, desperately try to reach the surface. Depression is my darkness.

I still laugh. And I make jokes and I say silly things. But it's not real. No one knows that though. I've been doing this a long time, wearing this face. It fits better than my real one. I feel pain. Physical pain. I feel achy and tired in my neck, shoulders, feet and back. I have an intense personal pressure to be over it even though I don't know what it is.

The darkness pulls at me over and over again, repeating every terrible thought I can summon.

I'm broken. I need to be better than I am. I'm not good enough. I'm not what I thought I should be by now and everyone in the whole world knows I've never really done fucking anything with my life and just why exactly am I still here? Who the fuck am I?  I'm going to die alone but not before Dad does-he's 72!-and even though he says he will, he won't live forever and how the fuck am I going to get through that? Death. Mom. Loss. Grief. Has it been too long to still feel this way when I think of her? Am I ever going to feel normal?'I'm living in a smelly apartment because I have cats -how cliche- and I stopped giving a shit that it smells like shit. I might be giving up. I watch TV and ignore my chores and eat fucking M&Ms and write depressing blogs that no one actually reads. I'm fat and not fucking ok with it and the new haircut doesn't matter because I didn't lose a chin, just got bangs for fuck's sake. 

I struggle. But I don't cry. I don't know if I know how to anymore. At some point I decided there wasn't any point. I try to stay distracted. That's not so easy to do when you have no desire to do anything but sleep and watch Netflix. Work helps. I put a lot of focus into my job and I allow myself to enjoy the successes each day brings. I told someone today that if I didn't have a job, I don't know what I'd do. That scares the shit out of me and the thought becomes another layer to the darkness. 

It's too much sometimes. Overwhelming and dark, cold and consuming. Like I'm drowning.