Fake Smile

Tomorrow marks the end of Mental Health Awareness Week. To celebrate this special week of recognition and appreciation, I wrote a poem about depression. It can be very easy to hide behind this facade of happiness when you're depressed. Many do it to prevent being asked questions, and many do it to deceive the outside world into thinking they're okay. This poem captures the whole essence of what it feels like to have your personality eaten away by depression, and how it can often get to the point where you're tired of hiding it. 

It's written in third person, to dissociate this depressive side from myself. I don't like to put myself within the same persona as this depressed side, because it's not the true version of myself. This is very much a temporary, demonic version of me, that comes and goes, but will never become who I am. With time, patience, and more effort, I know his power and influence will be minimised and silenced, but for now, this one is for him. 


Fake Smile

He never failed to smile,
every day, his face would gleam for a while. 
The people adored his charm, 
to them, he seemed no harm. 

He was full of generosity, 
wired with curiosity. 
When the room went dark, he was the light,
the one who chose to love, not to fight. 

To many, he was a force, 
a happy, outgoing person of course.
But all is not what it seems,
within his mind, he was facing all kinds of extremes. 

He would go home and wipe this facade away, 
cry for hours until it was a new day. 
He would wake up and dread the day ahead, 
Always believing he was better off dead. 

He never told people his struggles,
but at night he would stay up and pray for miracles. 
He would wake every morning and feel nothing but numb,
hoping and praying for better days to come.

He would try anything to numb this pain,
anything, which allowed him to refrain.
As hours became days, and days became weeks,
the rosiness began to wear from his cheeks. 

His smile was no more, 
his humour grew poor. 
He saw no purpose,
and was constantly nervous.

As time went on, this feeling showed no sign of going,
his hatred towards himself and the world was growing.
It was hard for him to see the positive side of things,
Especially when the depression clings. 


I hope the message of my depression was conveyed throughout that poem. I truly hope you got a sense of what it may feel like to become consumed by such thing, and how debilitating it can be for somebody in that position. 

My next post will be at a slightly later date of June 1st, and will be the start of something new; a blog series. Whilst writing this blog, I have touched on mental illness countless times, I have mentioned many aspects of my experiences, and the lessons I have learnt from each one. Noticeably, I have been all over the place, which gave me the idea of doing a 'My Journey Series'. This four part blog series will be spread over 4 weeks; each week focusing on one aspect of my journey and will consist of me taking you through my journey from the very start, right to where I am today, and all of the steps I took to make it here. I hope by doing this, I can really open up to everybody and convey my experiences in a sequential and capturing manner. Not only that, but I hope that I am able to provide some hope and inspiration to people who are struggling and 'stuck' right now. I aim to show you all how the dark days don't always last for too long, and better days do come sooner than expected. 

I hope you're as excited to read it, as I am writing it. 

See you soon, and stay positive. 

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