Spectre

The clouds are moving, light to dark across the sky. It is definitely going to rain. But not water from the sky. Rain will come down with my mood. I can already feel it's fingers clutching at my soul. A deep foreboding fills my mind. What will it be this time? Will there be a million fire-like tears streaming down my face? Will I lose the ability to speak? It's coming, but can I stop it?
First of all, I am tired. Not just tired but bone tired. It is taking effort just to put on my clothes. I did manage to wash my face and brush my teeth today. I also made my bed. Not a big deal, you say? Well, for me it is a very big deal. It means I didn't give up. True, I spent most of the day on the porch smoking cigarettes, but at least I got out of my room.
Depression is a curious thing. It doesn't go away. It haunts me. I can feel it waiting for a crack in my delicate armour, waiting for the chance to pounce on me like a lion in the brush. Every once in a while, I catch a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye. It is all darkness, trying to swallow me whole. I am so tired of fighting it, that I just might give into it. Might, I said. Might is a powerful word. It means you have options. I could use my coping skills and kill the spectre of depression, or I could just go down into the rabbit hole like Alice and find myself in some unknown terrifying world.
I've been there many times. It is a world of endless sleep, and endless nightmares.
The Shadow People are there. I can hear them calling to me like a siren's song leads a ship adrift in the dense fog, causing it to run aground. Who are the Shadow People? Well, they are the people who live in the dark places in mind, heart and soul. They cling to corners and walls, lurk in the closet and under the bed. The Shadow People are the unseen terrors. They have rotted faces, and eyes of fire. Their hands are the gnarled, grotesque, oozing like the hands of a corpse. They are cold, ruthless and will never stop whispering lies.
They tell me all the things you hate about myself. Things that make me feel weak, unloved and abandoned. Their words are not words exactly, but mutterings of gibberish that only I can understand. Sometimes they come one at a time; sometimes they gather around me like an icy wind blowing me to and fro. The one I am most afraid of is the Dark Man. He has jagged broken teeth, blackened by too many years in the netherworld. His breath is that of the dead. He does not talk to me; he just looks at me with his fiery eyes. You see, he knows all my secrets. The darkest secrets that I dare tell to anyone. So he looks at me and smiles a knowing smile of one who knows all the deepest darkest secrets about me, but promises not to tell. He reaches out to touch me every once in a while. I pull back in revulsion. He just hisses a low evil laugh and waits, always looking at me with those eyes.
Some of my therapy helps, my medications help. But, I know they are there. They come in periods of deep depression. The kind where I cannot speak for fear of a vomiting of words that no one will understand. Then, I will surely end up in the hospital, feet shuffling, keeping time with the others in their own states on drugged up delusion.
I don't want to go to the hospital ever again. I know that it provides the structure that I lack, but I hate the whole experience. Forced roommates, cold showers, permission to brush your teeth and the dreary empty faces etched in pain.
So, I fight it. I go to bed early and wake up late. I have a therapy appointment tomorrow, so I will be able to talk about it. It's probably nothing but studying too much for school. However, I have other symptoms. Hopefully, it will just be a bad couple of days. But that is part of what bipolar does to me. It makes me examine every emotion. I wish I had  blah days, and happy days like normal people. But no, with bipolar it's all or nothing. Right at this moment it is nothing. I will take my meds and go to bed. I have studying to do tomorrow and a paper to write. I pray to God every night that He looks after me while I sleep, no nightmares and no anxiety attacks. So far He has heard my prayer. If it be His will, there will be no spectres tonight.