I’ve been trying to solve the underlying issues that lead to my drug and alcohol abuse and I know it stems from my depressive disorder, my anxiety as well as the guilt and shame I have felt for years. In the inpatient program I just graduated from I wrote this poem about my depression and wanted to share it.
It’s called a mirror painted black.
As if in the depths of room there hangs a mirror painted black.
Concealed by hope yet it’s darkness still looms.
Foresaking the light in my life it feeds on my plight.
It steals my gaze.
It consumes all my days.
The song that it sings tranfixes my soul.
My mirror painted black takes an immeasurable toll.
Distorting the facts it howls and it laughs.
I’ve cried and I’ve weeped, for days I don’t sleep.
It implores my surrender,
My mirror painted black desires sorrow forever.
From this unabated torment which never subsides,
I plead for reprieve or at least to survive.
It whispers for me to hang from the gallows.
To live in regret and drown in the shallows.
I rarely write anymore and found doing this to be very cathartic.
When we put pen to paper, we take a little bit of the power back from our demons. Seen plainly in small black and white, they may not seem so great after all.
It feels good to find an outlet for my suffering instead of internalizing all my frustrations and sadness until I either lash out or isolate for days on end only leaving my room to buy booze.
I love seeing this. I have a song book full of emotions like these. Ive been so nervous to share. You’ve inspired me to maybe post one of them some day.
We were given an assignment in treatment to sum up our depression in some sort of artistic outlet whether that be a drawing, painting, short story or poem. I’ve always had a tendency to procrastinate and rush through things at the last second but this assignment hit home for me as I suffer severely from depression and have always enjoyed writing yet am sometimes terrified to do it. It only took an hour or so to write because I have been living with this pain daily for years. I’m pretty insecure about my level of intelligence but I think I did a pretty good job and was proud of myself for not just having written it but for having shared it in front of my housemates which is something years ago I never would have done.
I have a really hard time articulating how I feel, but since I’ve stopped using and moved past some of my insecurities I have found communicating my feelings is getting easier. There are a lot scarier things out there than being vulnerable. Some of the most scary things are living inside of your own head.
Amen. Drinking and using I hid from it for so long. Sober I was finally able to look it all in the eye.
It’s still uncomfortable, but now being able to see it for what it is and say it out loud, those fears and anxieties shrink by the day. We can finally heal.
