“Sometimes, when you’re in a dark place, you think you’ve been buried. But actually, you’ve been planted.” — Christine Caine
Depression is big. It’s heavy. It sits in your chest and whispers that you shouldn’t speak its name. It tells stories of despair, disconnection, and numbness so convincingly that you start to believe them. It drains the light from your life until you’re ground down to nothing.
But… is that really all there is?
Depression crept in slowly, like a fog curling through the cracks. I barely noticed its arrival until one day, the color had drained from everything. The majesty was gone from the sun. The music had left the wind. The world lost its magic.
Every step became slower. Stickier. Like walking through thick, wet mud.
I kept searching for something to hold on to—a reason, a rescue, a person, a purpose. I thought maybe if I could just find the right thing, the right someone, it would all be okay. That they could save me. But the truth was harder: no one on the outside could fix what was unraveling inside.
Eventually, the cold damp of depression wrapped around me like a second skin. I wore it quietly, even proudly, pretending everything was fine.
Mostly, I lied to myself.
“I’m not depressed,” I’d think.
“It’s not that bad.”
“I’m just tired.”
And slowly, I convinced myself that no one would care anyway. That no one would believe me. That it was better to go it alone.
The longer I stayed in that place, the more my life stopped feeling like life. It wasn’t just sadness. It was emptiness. No meaning. No spark. Just a constant, dull ache. You see other people laughing, living, and your pockets are turned out—empty. You have nothing left to give.
And somewhere in all that noise, a darker voice starts to whisper:
“Why am I even here?”
“What’s the point?”
“When does this end?”
Death can start to seem more palatable than this strange, painful version of existence.
And then comes the choice—quiet, but powerful:
Do you go deeper into the darkness? Let it swallow you?
—or—
Do you choose, even in the smallest way, to believe that this isn’t the end of the story?
That question changed everything for me. Not instantly. Not dramatically. But it cracked open a door.
The first path is a dead end. I knew that.
But the second? That path had potential.
Buried under shame and self-protection was a truth I had to face:
I was depressed.
Or maybe more accurately: I was experiencing depression. Depression was moving through me.
Naming it didn’t fix it—but it made it real. And that mattered. It was the first step in reclaiming my life, in moving through the ACT framework—starting with acceptance.
Acceptance let me stop fighting the feelings and start observing them. It gave me just enough space to take a breath.
In that space, I got curious.
What did depression feel like?
To me, it felt like cool, sticky mud. Heavy, but also… shapeable. Moldable.
What if this thing that weighed me down could also be a material I could work with? What if it held the raw ingredients of something else—something new?
That question didn’t give me all the answers. But it gave me something else: agency.
Maybe depression wasn’t the enemy. Maybe it was a teacher. Or a signal that something old needed to end.
Suffering. Numbness. Disconnection.
Maybe depression just wanted relief—and it didn’t care how it got it. But what if I did?
If this weight could be shaped, then the next question became:
What moments, memories, or loves would I carry with me into whatever came next?
If I could start from scratch, how would I mold my life?
What stories would I choose to tell about who I am?
I don’t have all the answers. But I know this:
Depression isn’t the end of your story. It might just be the place where something new begins.
