The Power of Hope
By: Iona Gibson
Tags: Hope, Mental Health Awareness, Depression, Mental Health, Awareness

Depression is so silent. So silent and so very painful. It’s a muffled voice, wanting to ask for help, shout for help, scream for help. Yet, no words come out. Fear and shame seal your lips firmly shut and you’re trapped in a relentless, breathless and desperate loop.

And there is this almost unspeakable rule, despite the best efforts of so many. A stigma still so strong and bred from inadvertent ignorance. Don’t talk about it. It’s not a cry for help you’re after, it’s most clearly attention you seek. It’s not empathy you need, it’s that eye roll and the age-old tale of Just Be Happy.

Just be happy. It’s so simple, right? Just snap out of it and enjoy life. Just see the bright side of the world around you. Just enjoy yourself. Just get on with it, everybody else does. It’s hard, but just move on. Just get over yourself. Just enjoy the moment. Just dust yourself off, there are people worse off than you, remember?

But it just isn’t that simple, right? It just isn’t that easy.

It’s so damn hard.

You’re hollow. You’re drained. You want to smile, but the cracks on your faded cheeks grow wider whenever you try. You hear the laughter of others and crave joy like you’re starved of water. You want to run and feel weightless, yet a thousand stones wrapped in thick rope hang from every limb, a blunt knife your only implement to hand.

And whilst all these feelings surround you and your energy is barely in existence, you desperately attempt to make things easier. You urgently try to divert yourself from the inner turmoil. You do anything and everything suggested to you to keep the despair away and fight so hard for that happy part of your soul suffocating deep within, that person you know is slowly fading away, all the while being hyper aware the ground beneath your feet could collapse without notice.

You write, you meditate, you walk and talk, distract yourself as best you can with all the things that are close to your heart. But the smallest of triggers unravels the ball of wool you’ve spent all day meticulously detangling and trying to re-order.

It’s indescribably devastating.

Just imagine Groundhog Day. Over and over and over. You reset against your will. Every. Single. Day. No matter how hard you’ve tried the day before, no matter if you’ve managed a smile, or managed to make a joke, you wake up in your bed as though it never happened. It’s dark once again as the sun shines bright from your window.

And you feel overwhelmingly lonely. The emptiness is intense and heartbreaking. You cry hard and wish, no, beg the endless ache away, because the thought of facing agony all over again is unbearable. There’s just no break and all you want is a break. Just for one day, one hour, even one short minute.

Still, somehow, your feet meet the carpet, your weighted legs manage to stand. And through it all, you find yourself under the stars each evening, nearing another new day. You don’t know how you do it, but somehow, you keep fighting. Because you don’t want to die, it’s the last thing you want.

What you truly seek is the end to your pain, not to your life. So, despite how frail and fatigued you feel, no matter the pain you know you are going to face day in and day out, you make that choice to stand for as long as you possibly can. You try and you try, and you try.

Because you hope for that day when things will feel better.

Hope, however small, is the most powerful and precious tool you have. Never let it go.