I never wanted to kill myself, but I would feel like I had to. Depression is now an entity that lives with me. He’s elusive, invasive, and persistent in the psyche of someone like me. I tend to keep depression at bay by exclusion, small circles of friends, and working out. I find an odd sense of loyalty to depression and this sadness. We’re together now. We’ve always been together.

My depression reminds me of what my world is and what I wish it could be, and what I wish I could be. An indescribable kind of pressure is applied to my body because of depression. It’s a feeling that reminds me of my cousins picking on me — they would sit on top of my chest so I couldn’t get up. I could feel my body sinking into the crumb-filled carpet. I was cemented in it. I explicitly remember wiggling and screaming as I tried to get out from underneath the crushing weight of hopelessness. This is the very experience my body endures every day. I wouldn’t wish these feelings on my worst enemy. Yet, the largest foe I have ever faced is myself.

I’ve tried to get help. I’ve tried to drink it away. I’ve called my friends and told them how terrible I feel. I’ve done everything I could do to keep it away. Even the Lexapro didn’t help. Instead, Lexapro flattened me out. I felt numb to everything around me. I don’t remember laughing, having an appetite, wanting to be around people, or even having the slightest desire to have sex. I was a shell of a person — soulless. Getting off of Lexapro was worse than ever starting it. My body, emotions, and brain all at once decided to turn on me. I was more depressed than I remember before. The thoughts raced back into my head, and I was hyper-sensitive to everything (more than I was before).

It always feels like something is following me. Watching me. A shadow that wants to come alive, but I try my best to keep it dormant because I know what it is. The days when it is dormant, life is enjoyable. I can go to the store, eat, and actually not be consumed by my thoughts.

The days when it percolates to the top trying to take over my life are a war. It complicates every relationship, every assignment, and every other aspect of an ordinary day. It makes me scared and paranoid of life and reminds me of its fragility. Depression is not people being negative but people unable to see past the things that trigger them.

A trigger for me is when two of my friends were shot and killed when I was growing up. So when I hear about shootings and gun violence, or even when I hear something that sounds like a gun — fireworks — I think of them. I start to think about how it could have been me. A rumination of thoughts begins to transpire and swirl around in my mind like in a sink drain. I fall endlessly and quickly into the abyss of my psyche. There is nothing to grab hold of and there is no light at the bottom. Once you’re at the bottom, there is no way out, besides time. I know I have to let it play out and be mindful. Until then, I doubt everything — paranoia and anxiety skyrocket.

For me personally, I look at the world and see there is nothing I can do to fix anything. I find myself in an existence that simultaneously baffles me and amazes me. I try to be good in this world by doing my best to live a life to help others and me. But sometimes, that seems to be impossible for me. Everything seems to be sliding together to end me and ruin me. I watch black men get shot by white men (usually cops, unless you’re Zimmerman). I watch white women steal from black women and fetishize my black male body to play out their own sexual fantasies. I see black men tell me how to live and who I should be with, while we literally compete against one another. I see black women and always feel like I’m not good enough for them. Then I have my thoughts, which tell me that everyone is right except me. I care all too much about what others think; I drive myself insane in the process.