I’ve heard depression described as something that comes on slowly, then suddenly. It’s a perfect description that I don’t think you can fully understand until it happens to you. You have periods where you don’t necessarily feel good but you’re okay. Then you start noticing that your behavior is changing slightly. Maybe you stop doing homework. Maybe you fail a class. Maybe you start eating a lot more than usual. Maybe you stop enjoying things you usually like to do. Whatever it is, the symptoms creep up on you and then BAM you realize that you’re sinking into something that feels like emotional quicksand and you’re struggling to free yourself but the harder you try, the faster you’re sucked in. Then sometimes you stop trying because it’s hard to care about anything except the despair you feel that seems to have no cause but it’s already too late because you’re in over your head and even if someone tries to help you, their words are jumbled echoes of something that may have motivated you when you were healthy but now you’re sick and it means nothing. For some people, a depressive episode is an extremely lazy and selfish withdrawl from everything where you focus completely on yourself and your pain. You hurt other people, you drag other people in, you mope, you cry, and you’re making it worse by dwelling on it but you can’t stop.

I failed a class. I didn’t even try. I feel like I’m fading. I think I’m in the quicksand again.