Broken Dreams – Struggling with Depression

             As someone who has lived most of my life with depression, I know firsthand all that depression can take away from a person.  Perhaps, stealing hope is one of depression’s main goals.  I know I have missed out on a lot in life because of my depression.  Depression suppresses the ability to dream or at least to make those dreams reality.  As I look back on my life, there are many things I wish I had experienced.  Some of them will never happen now.  It is too late.  There is hope for others, but depression makes it hard to maintain that hope.  When I am doing better, when the depression is being held at bay, I can find hope.  I can tell myself that not all my dreams are broken.  It is the times when depression is in control that my dreams seem hopeless.  

            I find that I write a lot of poetry when the depression is in control. The poem I am sharing today comes from that place of darkness.  It is the place where dreams seem hopeless.  A place where I feel I cannot even dream.  Depression makes it difficult to dream.  It makes life seem hopeless.  For me, I experience this hopelessness as a reflection of myself.  I do a lot of self-blaming.  Even though I know I am not my depression, sometimes it is difficult to separate who I am from the depression.  Those times are my most difficult because depression is in control.  Maybe you need to experience depression to understand the lack of hope that results from depression.  I know there are some people who possess the ability to be empathetic.  Often those are the people that go into healing work.  Some people develop the ability to be empathetic from having a loved one who struggles with depression.  Despite the empathy, I think living with depression creates a different level of understanding hopelessness.  It is a dark, suffocating feeling.  Personally, I hate it.  Despite my hatred, I struggle to be free of the hopelessness.  

            Treatment for depression helps.  That treatment looks different for each of us.  The waiting for treatment to be effective can be agonizing.  In those times, I find myself hanging onto the hope of others.  Sometimes that is all that helps.

            I have written more than I intended.  I had planned to just share a poem today.  However, once I start writing about depression, the thoughts often just spill out.  As you read this poem, know that it was written in a moment of darkness.  There is healing from depression, although it is an up and down journey.  Broken dreams have filled my life, but I hang onto to the hope others have for me.  They remind me that I can dream new dreams.  

 

 

Broken Dreams

 

Broken dreams stem from the depression

That has ruled my life for so long.

Dreams of a better life,

Dreams of connection,

Replaced by darkness and loneliness.

Broken dreams fill my life.

I dwell on them.

Ruminate on all the depression has stolen from me.

I am alone in my depression.

Standing barefoot on the shards of a life that could have been.

I dream about a reality I will never know,

An existence depression will never allow.

Broken dreams shout at me.

Ask me why I did not follow.

Depression blocked the path.

Left me in the darkness.

A life without meaning.

Dreams, like shards of glass, cause me to bleed.

Broken dreams, my reality.

I dare not dream again.

I know the loss I must endure.

Depression is a thief.

Stealing my dreams and leaving me hopeless.