An Evil Monster

There is an evil monster that lurks just around the corner everyday for many of us.  Some days we are able to escape from this monster, but other days this monster sneaks up on us and takes us over.  Who is this monster? This monster is depression.  There are millions of us who deal with this and no matter what anyone says it never truly goes away.  I have been battling depression for over 15 years now and even though I do manage to have good days at times I know that this is a battle that I will fight for the rest of my life.  Everyone of us who deals with this monster has to find our own way to handle it, just because something works for one person doesn't mean it will work for everyone.  I have learned a few tricks along my journey that have helped me many times through my darkest days.  One of my biggest ways of coping is an amazing group of friends.  It does not matter if the friends that you choose to have support you are people that you see everyday in real life of if they are special Internet friends, as long as they are your friends and you can all support one another that is all that matters.  My particular group of friends who provide me with the support to keep going are a group of amazing Internet friends.  We have never met in person but we are all very close and talk to one another daily and always make time to support each other.  Another one of my coping methods of choice is music.  I love the feeling of putting on my headphones and turning up the music and just letting the world disappear from around me.  When I am having an especially difficult time I tend to listen to older music that I grew up listening to as a child.  I am the first to admit that I had a difficult childhood, but there is just something about listening to that music that has a way of calming me.  My other favorite way of coping is to loose myself in a book.  If there was one device that I could not live without I would have to say that it would be my phone because it has my Kindle app on it.  My Kindle app is full of my favorite "escape" books.  I love to read most any kind of book but when I really need to escape from the evil monster I pull up one of my romance books where the hero is a tall, sexy cowboy and let myself get lost in another world.  Now I am not saying that I have always had good ways of coping with the evil monster, depression.  I have tried many ways to escape from it and a lot of those ways were very harmful to me.  I thought at one time that I had found a perfect escape from it, until I finally realized how bad I was hurting myself with my way of escaping.  At that time my chosen method of escape was cutting. I did not start out with intentions of hurting myself, it actually happened by accident.  I accidentally cut myself one day and I forgot about all of the other things that I was feeling and it just escalated from there.  This went on for quite a few years with me before I stopped and I still have times where I get the urge to cut and I have to stop myself.  I am NOT saying that anyone should ever use this as a way of coping, because it is not a way to help yourself.  Trust me, you will end up hurting yourself worse in the end.  I am telling you about my experience with cutting to ask you to PLEASE if you cut now or you ever have the urge to cut your self, PLEASE go to someone that you trust and tell them what is happening.  No matter what the evil monster makes you believe, there are ALWAYS people who love you and care about you.  Lets join together in our fight against this evil monster, cause none of us have to be alone in our fight!!!   NEVER GIVE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!