I’m sitting here staring out the window. It’s a dreary day. There’s a drug deal going down on the corner. I see a random squirrel crawling into the roof of the dilapidated house looking for shelter from the chilly early-spring weather. I can’t help but wonder if that squirrel is going to starve to death in that dilapidated house. If the little creature doesn’t return home, will the other animals of the forest come looking for him? I can’t help but wonder if the little guy has a family. Do the other squirrels feel connections the way humans do? Can animals mourn losses? Are squirrels able to conceptualize their mortality? Will the little creature feel a sense of fear?

I’ve been dead to the world for several weeks. I have been lost in my sense of mortality, fear, and anguish. Paperback books are my only escape. Some days I turn the music up so loud that nobody can hear me screaming into my pillow.

I’ve been wondering, silently, if I will someday be like the little squirrel. Wandering off into a dark hole to avoid my emotions only to die alone and decompose, to provide nourishment for other creatures to feast on my carcass. The circle of life continues. The world will keep spinning without me someday.

My mental illness has destroyed my ability to connect with other humans. Music is my salvation. The other day I was blasting Nirvana and trying to figure out if Coban understood the lasting impact that his music would have on the world. Was he so blinded by self-loathing? Did he feel that inner demons were sucking out his artistic ability and his love for life?

I want to love the sound of the first spring rain. I want to enjoy the smell of fresh-baked cookies. I want to love the warm cozy feeling a fresh cup of coffee gives me on a spring morning. But all of life’s joys are fleeting when the day is done. When I lay my head on my pillow, I’m still afraid to turn off the lights. I’ve been trying to write something for weeks now. I’ve been trying to write something of substance. As I sit here, I feel like part of my soul is dying. I feel scared to be alone, but I don’t know how to be around people anymore. I feel untalented,  uncreative, and unwanted.

I feel like my depression is making me lose all my happiness. It almost seems as if my mental illness is a character in my life. I feel like I’m in some scary story. I feel like I’m the main character and there’s a monster who gets sadistic pleasure out of torturing innocent people. Every night when I go to bed, I feel like the monster comes back and sucks a little more of what makes me, out of my body. I wanted to write something special, but here you go—the nonsensical ramblings of an insane woman.