10/24/2018

Dear Depression,

It’s taken me eight years to finally write back to you. I’m sorry for the delay, it has taken me a lot of courage to be able to write back to you. This is something that I have been dreading on doing since the first letter you sent me. The letter explaining what the contract I didn’t know I signed said, and I couldn’t cancel my plan despite how many times I tried to call the customer service line. I’ve been trying to cancel this plan but it seems I can’t.

I wanted to let you know that I don’t hate you as much as I used to. I thought it was a magazine subscription, I’d get it every month or maybe even every other week. But it turns out it was a constant billing from my bank account from The Life Bank. The Life Bank notified me, asking if this purchase was something that was normal, and of course, I said no. But The Life Bank didn’t do anything to try to fix the scam you have created. It was as if you hacked everything I had. My technology, along with the system of my body. You created a virus that spread through not just my news feed, but my veins. This virus consumes me, it consumed me. Of course, I get pop up adds that I can’t seem to ‘x’ out of and end up opening up another browser tab without even realizing it, and by the time I do, it’s been too late and you have added another virus and scam into my body’s software. It’s as if you have gotten into the office of my mind and suddenly became in charge of everything. I can’t remember any memories, and that’s all your fault. I’m blaming you because I shouldn’t blame myself. This is a subscription I didn’t sign up for. You’re like those annoying phone calls from those scammers who try to get my credit card information but you already have it and keep calling just to rub it in my face that you now have my identity. You have taken my identity, you have my social security number and everything. My bank account information along with my birth certificate. You easily pass off as me, especially since you are a shapeshifter. You have shifted yourself into looking like me, acting like me and easily pass off to be me. But one thing you don’t realize is that you’re not me. You will never be me. If you would have asked me if you were me years ago, I would have said yes. I would have gone on to explain how you were all I knew, you are a toxic relationship that I seem to not be able to remove myself from. But because of how toxic you are, I now know how to deal with it. I want to say how I can get out of it, but I still feel as if this relationship I hold with you is a life subscription. I know it is a life subscription.

For the past several years I will give to you that you have successfully made my life a living hell. You still currently do honestly. As much as I hate giving you this credit, I know it’s something I need to recognize and I need to express. The amount of pain and suffering you have caused me has been a great deal, an amount I still am not sure I’m okay with handling. The way you have controlled my life for so long is disturbing. You have the audacity to refer to me as your lover and your friend. But in reality, I know the games you are playing. I see through it. You are not my lover, nor my friend, and you never will be. At first I loved the feeling of you consuming me, it was as if I was under a love spell, but in reality, it was you controlling me. The love spell was hypnotizing. And I have to admit, it was beautiful and repulsively romantic. The way you would feed me these lies, it was as if I was a baby bird and you were regurgitating this fake information back to me. The feeling of warmth you give me as I feel you fill my body, it is like sand. Sand filling every last crevice inside of my body. The bones, the veins, the cells, everything. The way my body sunk more and more into my bed, it was as if I was sinking into quicksand. I loved that. I loved the artificial warmth you provided. It was moving. And when I say ‘moving’ I mean I would spend hours of my nights crying alone in my room, praying I didn’t wake a soul. Because that’s what love is, right?

You have created a monster inside of me, one I do not want. It is as if you have created me into being something I do not wish to be. This monster isn’t me, you say it’s the real me but I know you are lying. Please stop lying. You keep shoving these lies down my throat, I am gagging and choking, and you aren’t trying to save me, you’re trying to kill me. That’s the whole plan, isn’t it? To bring me to the edge and whisper to me jump but I know I shouldn’t. It’s as if you lead me out to the cliff or the bridge, and you let my toes hang off, and you ask me to sit. And for some reason I trust you, so I do. But as my feet hang I can feel the wind brush against my legs. It’s a freeing feeling. It’s as if it’s you, holding out your arms, promising you’ll catch me. For some reason, I believe you. So the feeling lingers, but when you pull me closer, I panic and I rise. I rush back to the land and stay far away. I’m too much of a pussy to do anything like that.

You make waking up every day difficult, you hate the pattern you have created, and now I am suffering the consequences because you are at fault. My life is an ongoing cycle in which I do everything the same every day. I wake up, go to school, come home, go to bed, repeat. Wake up, go to school, come home, go to bed, repeat. I hate night time, and it’s because of you. Everything reminds me of you. I hate the darkness because that’s what I associate with you. You remind me of the darkness not in just the sky but the darkness in my heart. You have created this empty feeling inside of me. You say this is because of me, because of everything I’ve done and I have been through. You have corrupted me. The heaviness isn’t just a blanket I wrap myself in, it’s something that I am being drowned in. The way you make me hate waking up every morning and dread going to sleep is getting obnoxious at this point. Hence to why I am writing this complaint letter. I want to talk to not just your manager but the owner of the company you work for. I plan on speaking to my lawyer, I cannot just ignore you anymore. I cannot let you continue to scam me like this. This isn’t fair to not just me but the others you are scamming as well. The dread you consume me with when my eyes grow heavy at night is disappointing and yet satisfying. The disappointment is waking up the next morning and the satisfaction is the fact I get to not be cognitive and basically practice being dead for a short period of time. You make me live through this cycle of pain and yet you get upset when I follow the set cycle you have made for me.

Do not even get me started on your counterpart anxiety. The anxiety is still not being controlled, and I hate that. You say it’s because I secretly have a control issue, where I don’t see it, but you say everyone sees it. You continue to remind me of everything I try to hide. You bring up how everyone will see through my act, the people will see how awful I am, and because of the real me, I will lose everything I ever loved and cared about. And it will all be my fault. You constantly remind me that I am just one large fuck up to where I will disappoint not just my friends and family but also myself, even though I say I could never disappoint myself. You constantly bring up how I have commitment issues, but the only commitment I have is with you and anxiety. I don’t want to be committed to you, you say that's because of my commitment issues. Which doesn’t make any sense because of the fact that I do not want to be in a toxic relationship, I do not want to be trapped. Because I don’t want to be committed to something. People will see through my act, and see how messed up I am, and that’s horrifying. But you have created the thing I am most terrified of. I cannot breathe because of you both. I give you both too much credit.

You have rewired the data in my brain and now I am losing function in every part of my body. My nervous system is wonky because of the rewiring, it is as if you have detected it completely. I have lost all feeling, I have lost all sense of it. I only cry because I have fallen into the cycle you have created me. I used to cry because I was depressed, now I cry because that’s what I do. I don’t know what else I am if I am not crying. I feel so silly when I feel, it is such thing to feel emotions especially when you don’t feel them for a period of time-long or short - it’s almost like you were under hypnosis and got snapped back into reality.

You are deceiving and you are a liar. I cannot fathom how something that has no physical form has so much power as yourself. You blow my mind and seemingly blow me as well, fuck me over and leave me with the residue. It’s as if you had rid me from my innocence and left me to rot in my self-pity. Which is revolting if you ask me. I grew up too fast because of how quick you stripped me from my purity. It is displeasing and my review on your website will be 1 star, and I’m giving you a full star because of the fact you were my only friend for so long. You were my best friend and all that I knew. I was ten when I met you, and because of that, you showed me how to grow up and live life. Not the best life, but a life. You were the comfort that I needed when I had no one who understood me. You were the girl who took me in as one of their own. It was extremely generous of you at the time, but that was before I realized you had trapped me in a relationship I cannot get myself out of. They say there are helplines and I can call them, but I keep telling myself it’s not bad enough to do that. That I could have it worse.

There’s so much I want to write about when it comes to complaining to your employer, but I think three pages is enough for now. But in reality, I know it isn’t because the three pages do not make up for the eight years of damages you have caused me. I want to return this malfunctioned item you had sent me, I want to get my money back. I do not want this flash drive you have sent me full of all of these viruses.  And so I say, with the utmost disrespect, fuck you.

Always and Forever,

Gabrielle Farley Cunningham