In the Shadow of Death

Joy Untainted
23 hours ago
2 min read

When your life falls apart, your first instinct is to fight. Fight to keep up. Fight to put everything back together. Fight to survive.

One day, you are fighting to breathe. And the next, in the blink of an eye, you are numb. Numb to the pain. Numb to the surroundings. But deeply aware of the dark shadows closing in.

Suddenly, the TV show no longer brings you joy. You force yourself to eat to quiet the rumbling. One cookie will do. The slow tap tap tap of your fingers on the keyboard forces you back to reality as you see the email you were dreading come across your screen. Almost surprisingly, you can’t bring yourself to care. It’s a miracle you’ve even logged on at all.

The tears and screams of anger and grief suddenly quiet. And a deep, dark stillness settles over your soul.

Your will to move and breathe lies limp alongside you as you use every ounce of energy you have in you to summon the willpower to show up. To keep fighting. To try for one more day.

You turn your head away from your ringing phone. Of course, all you want to hear is your loved one's voice. But you simply do not have the capacity to respond. Responding will break the dam. The one thing standing between you and the abyss of trauma that has become too much to bear or think of.

Only then can you see your unraveling. Each day you were fighting to breathe, you were losing a piece of yourself under the weight of your circumstances. Depression is a thief. And as the shadows close in, rolling over like thunderclouds in a fast approaching storm, blocking out the last rays of light, all you feel is numb and broken with a dose of helplessness.

Of course, everyone’s experience with depression is unique. But those who have walked in its shadows understand the all-encompassing nature of its grasp. And yet, the world will not - cannot - stop to let you heal.

Then again, maybe the biggest obstacle is not the noise, the non-stop demands, or the problem itself.

Maybe, just maybe, the biggest obstacle is the whisper that tells me that healing isn’t possible. That the darkness will never lift. Or rather, that I am beyond rescue, and no one dares lift me from my bed of despair.

No one but Him.

I just wanna hit pause for a second

I just wanna slow down for a minute

It's all changing faster than I can take

I'm hit by another wave before I can even catch my breath

And I try

I try to remember the words that You've spoken

In the night

I whisper a prayer underneath my breath

I've been feeling low

Could you lift me up? Could you lift me up?

I've been feeling low