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Now that you look for it, searching through the infinite blocks of memory that spread like a never-ending web of patterns, emotions and thoughts, it cannot be found:
That moment when you stepped ahead but your foot never touched a foundation. The second you dropped into the abyss of overthinking your actions and sense of purpose. The time you made the mistake of attempting to quantify your value.
The day you fell into Depression.
Not even your brain recognized that crucial twist when monoamine oxidase A began overproducing, breaking down your serotonine, norepinephrine and dopamine.
And thus it started: the birth of your second shadow.
Slowly you begin thinking more about what you do, balancing options more often than necessary. You debate right and wrong to extents that surpass ethical and legal measures placed by the modern society. You suddenly develop a higher curiosity towards philosophy and its work on the "meaning" of everything. On your meaning.
You never anticipated it. It was just an extra habit: balancing things more and more. You never thought it was wrong, debating your existence.
Until, you hit that wall: So in the end, nothing REALLY matters now does it?
In that moment you recognize the voice that guided you through it all. You finally see the shadow that grew and fed on those small actions. It begins whispering in your ear, thinking about the same things you do, but giving you a different answer for everything:
You: "Maybe I should make new friends"
It: "They will not like you anyways. What if they hate you?"
You: "I will begin working out"
It: "Does it really change anything?"
You: "I will study for a new degree."
It: "Are you really smart enough? Maybe you will just embarass yourself"
It will not stop no matter what. It is the assassin who targets your every idea, your every decision. The darkness that engulfs your every new spark and the cliff ocean that absorbs your every warm emotion.
But you fight.
Depression: the moment you are too cold to even tremble. When your will to even consider a new spark, let alone give it a try, left you. It got taken away by this shadow.
But you struggle.
You become nothing. You feel like nothing. You push away your friends and loved ones because you feel like YOU do not deserve their warmth. You do not leave your room because you feel like you have no reason to do so. All you loved to do before becomes meaningless.
But you still push forward.
You degrade faster and faster, trying to find a way out before the clock hits midnight and the world you have left is taken away from you.
You stop.
How naive you have become, without realizing that you were swimming deeper, hoping to break the surface.
But you try. You try for years. One more time. JUST ONE MORE! Again, and again, and again.
You become numb, blinded by lack of purpose and value. Your hatred towards yourself, even that gets taken away. You are cold. Nothing matters anymore.
Yet in that moment, you realize one thought: It still hurts.
Tha pain of this downwards spiral. The agony, the misery.
Why are they still there if you are with no purpose and value? Why do you still DARE to feel this?
If you still hurt, you still recognize pain, then maybe, JUST MAYBE, it can become a compass. The poisoned dagger that stabbed your heart. It still hurts. Maybe you can find it, Maybe you can, if not find the dagger, at least locate its handle.
Maybe you can use the pain to find the wound.
But then the second question arises: Will you pull it out to heal it, or let yourself bleed out?
Healing is difficult and painful. Do you still have the strenght to do so? You could just let it all go, painlessly. Not like anyone will notice. Not like you matter.
But even so, you begin to look for the weapon that started it all. And so, you make your first mistake, right at the beginning of the search: You open up to the ones closest to you. Those who you knew, would not take your task serriously. Those who will mock your fight.
Usually that is the first time you hope to bleed out.