The Millstone

How do you describe depression to someone who thinks it means "very sad?"

How do you explain anxiety to someone who thinks it means "very nervous?"

What words can you use to make them understand what it's like

To wake up in the morning with a millstone tied around your neck?


A millstone you carved yourself in reverse:

A pebble added when you ate pizza instead of exercising. 

A stone grafted to the surface when you looked in the mirror 

And wondered why anyone would ever love you. 

A handful of gravel, added daily, to represent the self-destructive

Nature of the ouroboros fucking with your mind 

As the things you worry about make you worried and become the things you worry about. 

You even added your own decorations. 

Every unkind word, spoken or imagined, staining the surface in bold black letters

That never wash away, no matter how many kind words try to replace them. 


But even that's a metaphor less cruel than the reality. 

If you walked around with a millstone hanging from your neck 

Covered in words of shame and self-hate, people would notice. 

Someone would stop you and try and get you to take it off. 

They would ask you about it and force you to sit down and explain

Why you're carrying so much extra unnecessary burden.

But no one can see the millstone of depression and anxiety. 

It hangs there, leaving you bent and broken.

No one knows and no one really understands...

Except the other bent and broken people. 

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