Melancholy Has No Face
4-21-25 Day after easter. And before I write what I need to, I just want to say Easter was good this year. Great. I don’t know why. I was in a good mood because I had the my right formulary finally after 5 weeks of utter depressive hell. That combined with nothing “offputting” happening….it was swell. Also, no V’s since then….Anyway, to the actual piece.
(after writing this-i intended this just to be a post but i turned it into a poem. I think it works well this way so i’ll keep it here."
Depression Doesn’t Have a Face
“I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.” Robin Williams
Depression is internal
Not physically witnessed
I cannot show you the fire
that has charred the insides
of my core self-esteem for decades
I cannot show discomfort
as a bleeding organ
or melancholy as a sickening scar.
If I’m suicidal (for REAL this time)
you will never know and only have a clue
long after I’m buried, and still be confused.
Depression is not in the face.
Not a frown or scowl.
Ruffled eyebrows.
or some other ugliness.
We are fools to optical illusions.
If the car looks like a million bucks
I wouldn’t know otherwise because
I’m no care guy or mechanic.
The insides of an automobile
are alien to me.
I am a psyche mechanic though,
at lease when speaking of myself.
And my pain is not sharable
or transferable. Empathy falls short
to things not superficial or simplistic.
Never have I worn
my true mood on my sleeve.
I don’t act or lie.
I just try to hide those snakes
That only slither in my mind
And bite me with poison
For the benefit of social exchange.
But when I’m alone I might cry
Or be blank or angry or apathetic
Deranged or pathetic.
I cannot cut out my metaphorical heart
and wrap it around my arm!
Maybe I should just tattoo
“I’m Depressed sometimes”
“Bipolar always”
on my forehead.
But that would be idiotic
for many reasons.
People don’t need to know.
or want to know.
And I get that.
and I don’t want them to know,
sometimes.
Especially when I am feeling
in a god-awful mood.
Can nobody look between
The lines?
Because I have become
baffled(!)
by how much
the people in my life
have not gotten any
better at
understanding.
They have gotten worse.
Less accepting, more prejudiced.
Uncaring. Is empathy dyeing?
They seem blind to my…. what?
How can I explain utter despair?
Anxiety?
I feel anxiety seems to be a word
misunderstood
by those who obviously do not experience it
and those who do,
it’s a chasm of difference.
And the horrible hurt, yes pain, inside?
People don’t know this invisible thing,
cause they cannot experience it!
I cannot tell you how being
burned to death
feels
but
I can ascertain,
from the screams,
from the heat of the flames,
I can deduce
From the melting smell of the flesh,
From that memory of my burned hand that
“I think that hurts really bad.”
But maybe,
being burned alive is
the ultimate of all ecstasies,
the perfect experience.
But we cannot ask
the charred remains
at the end
Can we.
But you can ask me
how depression feels.
Hell!
I have written plenty
and talk plenty about it.
And yet, I do not feel,
anybody has gotten closer
to getting it or even believing it.
The same people who think
“Nobody is dumb enough
to kill themselves”
even when they see
the swinging bulging eyes
of suicide right in their faces.
It’s not your beliefs and opinions
That should color understanding the pain
Of others because they are wrong
Some of the times. That is called
Ignorance, and a willing ignorance at that.
And I don’t expect a perfect
heartfelt understanding
and an overflow of sympathy,
but how can ignorance have increased
for mental health awareness!
