Despair

It hits you like a Mac Truck. One minute you're sitting there, normal as can be, a perfectly functioning member of society. The next you're overcome by a paralyzing feeling that you can't shake no matter how much positivity your mind can attempt to conjure.

This feeling can be brought on for a number of reasons. The reason never seems explainable to another person yet it's totally understood by you This horrible feeling can be brought on by any number of factors but most likely by something small. Perhaps it's brought on by a quick snippet of a painful memory of the past passing though your mind. Perhaps it's brought on by seeing something you never wanted to see on Twitter/Facebook. Perhaps the source of this sorrow is the realization that someone is better off without you. No matter where this feeling comes from, you can be sure it will be nearly impossible to be rid of.

It's just an incredibly bad feeling. It stops all progress made in your life immeadiately. What you've done before is no longer important. No matter what you've accomplished in your life, you can never become immune to this feeling. It's ever lurking as a dark symbol that we are not safe from our own minds.

In some ways this feeling is like a drug. Your mind is altered while you're inflicted with it and you do things you wouldn't normally do. The government has no policy against it, there are no groups dedicated to make sure kids stay away from it.

The feeling I describe is the feeling of despair. Each person treats it's arrival differently. For example, my worst bouts with it consisted of me laying on the floor in my house. I'd lay down there for hours because it seemed like too much energy to muster to do something else. I'd lay there doing absolutely nothing except for occasionally banging my head against the ground. I'd lay there not texting, not talking, not watching tv, just thinking. When things became too painful to think about, my brain would just stop. I would drift off thinking of nothing, almost as if I was sleeping. Only I was wide awake in some other plane of non-thought. I would suddenly realize that I was concious not knowing how long I had been laying there but more importantly, not caring.

While each person may be inflicted with despair differently, I would wager that each reader knows of what feeling I speak. I urge you to enjoy each free moment you have as much as possible. Because once despair infects you, enjoyment will be a thing of the past.