The Chains of Staying
I think that I’ve stopped living life. Not in the dramatic, cinematic way people talk about when they hit rock bottom, but in the quiet, unremarkable way that creeps in so slowly you almost don’t notice it happening. I don’t chase moments anymore, don’t crave the kind of laughter that steals my breath or the kind of mornings that make me want to stay awake. I don’t make plans or dream about what’s next because next feels like a cruel joke… another version of the same tired day dressed in different clothes. Now, I just… survive. I wake up, swallow the heaviness that greets me before my feet even touch the floor, and start counting the hours until I can close my eyes again. Somehow, that routine, this endless loop of enduring, has become what I call a day. I tell myself to just make it to tomorrow, as if tomorrow might hold something softer, something lighter. But most days, it’s the same. The same ache that sits like an anchor in my chest, the same fog that wraps around my mind until I can’t remember what clarity even feels like, the same quiet begging… please, let this get easier. I’m not living anymore. I’m just waiting. Waiting for a feeling that never comes. Waiting for some invisible shift that I can’t name. Waiting for something to make this all make sense. The trouble is, I don’t even know what it is I’m waiting for, only that I am.
I don’t stay alive because I want to anymore. I stay alive because I promised to. And no one knows how heavy it is to keep a promise I never wanted to make. There’s a kind of cruelty in that, how love can tether you to a life that hurts to keep living. It’s a strange ache, to be held here by the hands of people who love you, even when every part of you is reaching toward the quiet relief of letting go. Their love wraps around me like a rope… soft, but tight enough to leave marks. Some days it feels gentle, a reminder that I matter. Other days, it feels like I’m suffocating under the weight of their hope. People like to call it brave… to stay, to fight, to endure… but there’s nothing heroic about waking up every morning and pulling yourself through the same wreckage you barely survived yesterday. It doesn’t feel brave to keep breathing when every inhale burns like fire. It feels like dragging myself through glass so sharp it rips me to shreds just to keep my word. The promise echoes in my mind like a prayer I don’t even believe in, and I bleed quietly for the sake of the people who would rather see me shattered than gone. I understand that kind of love, the desperate kind that clings to what’s left, even when it’s only pieces. Losing Chris taught me that. His absence carved a hollow in me that never quite closed, and I still ache in the shape of him. I know what it is to wake up every day to a silence that screams. I couldn’t bear to be the reason someone else felt that way about me. So, I keep my promise. I stay. Even when it hurts. Even when it feels like my staying is just another kind of dying.
Lately, I feel like the world has taken everything it could from me… piece by piece, breath by breath, until there’s almost nothing left. Every morning feels like a debt collector knocking, demanding payment in the form of whatever small spark I managed to gather while I slept. It’s as if the universe keeps reaching into me, taking the warmth from my bones, the hope from my chest, the softness from my soul, and leaving me with just enough to stand upright. The devil has been at my door for years now, whispering through the cracks, patient and persuasive. I’ve fought him off with shaking hands and hollow prayers, clutching at faith like it’s the last match in a storm. But lately, the fight feels useless. My hands are raw from pushing him away. My voice cracks when I try to beg him to leave. I’m so tired in a way that sleep can’t touch. So, I let him in sometimes, just for a moment, just long enough to sit beside the darkness because pretending I’m not exhausted is worse than admitting I am. Because the truth is, fighting the darkness every day starts to feel a lot like dying in slow motion, and sometimes, surrender feels like the only honest thing left to do.
All the clouds inside me are raining and they never seem to run out. Every thought drips, every heartbeat feels waterlogged, every breath pulls through the thickness of a storm that won’t pass. People think depression is just sadness, as if it’s something that can be cried out, walked off, prayed away, but it’s more like drowning in plain sight. You learn how to tread water with a smile, how to make small talk while your lungs quietly flood. You nod, you laugh at the right moments, you say you’re tired when what you really mean is that you’re drowning. It’s a quiet kind of death, one that doesn’t come with sirens or goodbyes, just the slow unraveling of light inside you. You keep performing life while your soul slips further beneath the surface, and no one notices the bubbles rising where your voice used to be.
And still, I know I’ll get through it. I always do. Somehow, no matter how close I come to crumbling, something inside me keeps crawling toward another sunrise. But I’m so tired of going through it, of being the one who always survives. There’s a certain ache that comes with endless survival, a weariness that sinks deeper than bone. I’m tired of breaking and rebuilding, of gathering my shattered pieces only to watch them fall again. I’m tired of pretending to be grateful for lessons I never asked to learn, as if pain is some holy teacher I should thank for its cruelty. Healing starts to feel like punishment when it never ends, like being forced to walk barefoot across the same glass you already bled on, over and over, just to prove you still can. Sometimes I wonder if “getting through it” even counts as living, or if I’m just enduring beautifully, decorating my suffering with strength so it looks like progress.
The scariest part of depression is how good I’m getting at it. How seamless the disguise has become, how the mask molds perfectly to my face now, so convincing that even I start to believe it sometimes. I literally convince myself I’m all better until the silence creeps in. I’ve mastered the small, practiced smile, the casual “I’m fine” that rolls off my tongue before anyone can ask again. I laugh at the right moments, keep conversations light, move through the world like I’m not crumbling underneath it. I’ve learned how to break quietly, how to bleed inward, how to carry the weight of my own collapse without letting it spill into the room. That’s what terrifies me, the way pain has woven itself into my routines so completely that it feels almost familiar, almost safe. It’s the haunting realization that I’ve made a home out of my hurt, that I’ve memorized every corner of it, and on the rare days when the heaviness lifts, I almost miss it, because at least the darkness, for all its cruelty, feels like something I understand. Maybe that’s the cruelest part of it all, that even as I fight to stay alive, some quiet part of me has started to wonder if I’d know who I am without the ache.
Author’s Note:
Originally written: September 11, 2022 - The place where survival weighs heavier than freedom.
I still tell my therapist this often… that I rationally know I will get through this, but the going-through-it part is so heavy. It’s like carrying water in a sieve; no matter how much you try to hold, it slips away, leaving only the weight and exhaustion of trying. It feels appropriate to share this piece now because, unfortunately, that debt collector has come back, ready to collect his dues. Some days, I can read these entries and feel like an outsider in my own life; the girl who wrote them seems like a stranger, a shadow I once inhabited. And yet, I know her all too well. I remember the mornings she dragged herself out of bed with shaking hands, the hollow prayers whispered into darkness, the quiet resilience that felt like it might crack at any second.
Looking back, I see both the brokenness and the stubbornness that kept her alive. I see the small victories disguised as survival, the mornings she didn’t give in, the moments she smiled through the storm, the nights she allowed herself to feel and to breathe anyway. But, I also feel the ache anew, because grief, depression, and exhaustion have a way of returning, like tides that never fully retreat. The person I am now is shaped by all of that… the fear, the pain, the quiet endurance… but also by the memory of the strength it took to keep going when going felt impossible.
Reading this, I feel tenderness for her, anger for the world that demanded so much of her, and sorrow for the loneliness she bore in silence. And I feel a strange kinship with anyone who has learned what it is to survive in pieces, to carry promises not meant for human shoulders, and to live inside an ache that refuses to soften. Sharing this now is a way of holding her, of acknowledging her, and of admitting that even years later, the chains of staying sometimes still rattle in the corners of my chest. Yet, somehow, I keep moving forward, with the memory of endurance guiding me, and with the quiet hope that even when the debt collector returns, I will meet him with the fragile courage of a heart rearranged, shattered pieces held together by stubborn resilience.
