I get discouraged easily. No matter how well things are going, there are always setbacks. They can be simple things, or someone not keeping their end of a deal. Or maybe someone cried off on a night out and you find out later they were with another friend instead. Learning to let those things go before they do you harm is no easy thing. I try and try again, but those niggling things just come back every time. 

Many things are left undone, unfinished, and unloved. Rising above all this is hard. The dark pit of depression I lived in is always open, moving around me like firemen with a blanket waiting to catch a jumper. The difference is, the pit is seemingly bottomless. Have you ever seen one of those drawings of the infinite staircase that is always going up? Well, depression goes the other way. 

An image came to mind one day that I was going down into an eternal gloom. I couldn’t look back only at the next step, its edge beyond black so that it could just be seen. Slowly, step by step, I went forward but never seemed to get anywhere. The walls of the stairway appeared solid though they could not be seen, and were always beyond touch. Occasionally a faint glimmer of light would be up ahead, like a sickly firefly clinging to life. Life is for those above, not for those on the stairway. Theirs is despair. You can not ignore the light though. It hovers nearby, like a fisherman’s lure. 

Dare you take the lure?

I did. For a distraction from my own toxic thoughts. Do you know what that light is? Hope. A tiny bit of hope. Hope, no matter how faint or distant, is all you need to step off the staircase. It’s not a step back, or up, but sideways, through the wall. You’ll discover as I did that the walls are imaginary. You go through them and they vanish. 

Outside the stairway is the road to recovery. In truth, it’s a path of rocks, uneven as hell. Not an easy walk, but it is a necessary one. As you continue on, the rocks lessen until it feels like you’re dragging your feet through fine sand. This will also pass. 

Eventually, you will find a pavement littered with sticks to trip you up and send you tumbling. So long as you get up and keep moving forward. It’s a long walk, but you don’t have to do it alone. There are many others just like you, some just a few steps ahead, to show you the way.

When you one day glance back over your shoulder you’ll see others struggling along behind you, remember to reach out and lend a hand. It’s all both of you need.