When I was a kid, I read a Robert Stine horror book where the main character tried to get rid of a monster that fed on his negative emotions. He threw it out onto the street… and when he came home, it was waiting for him inside.
As a teenager or in early adulthood, I read a book from the Mefody Buslaev series, where Mefody got a dark artifact that made his life miserable. One day, walking through Moscow, he “accidentally” dropped it into the Yauza river. When he returned home, the artifact was lying on his bed.
In both stories, those interactions with the monsters make you feel the absolute helplessness the characters face. Last year I felt something very similar — when, after happy, light days, the “ordinary” depressive thoughts came back. You walk around, laugh, enjoy yourself, and for a moment you think: “Maybe this is my new normal?” And then reality comes back like that monster — lying on the bed, hiding under the sink, in the dark corner of your apartment.
I think that’s the scariest part of depression I’ve experienced. Not the constant background thoughts and pain, but that moment after a good day when you start to think: “What if the pain is the new normal now?”
Recently, I tried lowering my antidepressant dose and had a few of those negative-thought days again. Ugh. Unpleasant. But now at least I understand: that’s not the norm.
And if you are in depression right now — know this: it will get better.