TRIGGER WARNING/CW: Suicide, dark humor, self-deprecating humor.

Sometimes I have to take a break from informative "How-To" blog posts, get back to my writerly roots, and create a short essay for the good of my own mental health. The reason I started this blog is because I enjoy using comedy and sarcasm to cope with my mental illness. Likewise, using comedy to help end the stigma can be equally as effective as sharing difficult stories in a serious tone. The one below is based on my past experiences with extreme depression. Small details have been changed so I should emphasize that this is ~creative~ non-fiction. Also, even though this post contains dark humor, I am currently doing JUST FINE and can confirm that a wellness check is not necessary.

+++

Depression is flicking a booger and accepting it’s new life on the wall. Wellness is using a tissue and throwing said wad in the trash. What makes the latter series of steps so unfathomable to the deeply depressed, is the idea of taking action. At a time when movement is as pleasurable as broiling your bladder, trading a bed for a trek to the trash is equally as enchanting. Immediately you are bullied by a murky morass. Clothing butters the floor like a dozen flattened corpses. Your brows furrow at flies. Garbage looks up at you with its egg-carton eyes, “please, please let me go. We’re so much better off apart.” Passing off the plastics plea, you mold your tissue to fit an overloaded bin. You wait for a sense of uplifting accomplishment, but she stands you up. In retaliation, the trash ejects a dowry of salsa. Like toes in a shell-riddled tide, tiny tomatillos tingle the tops of your feet. While drying a perished pedicure, your thoughts make a noose of the towel.