Depression: Let me paint you a picture...

It's kinda like this: I'm standing in a huge warehouse, all concrete and steel. The room is cold, and there's no light save for a small lamp that only burns brightly enough to illuminate a couple yards in each direction. I can walk around the whole interior, running my fingertips over the walls again and again, but I can't find a door. I can hear people outside, going about their daily lives; happy, sad, angry, excited, just interacting and being people. The hollow echoes of their lives ring hollow in the air, and nearly disappear entirely when I stand in the center of the room, surrounded by the inky black and the cold. Sometimes, I'm in here for a few days. Sometimes a few weeks. I know that the sun is out there waiting for me. It's just a matter of time before I find my way out again. But until then, it's cold and dark and quiet and I wish the noise from outside wasn't so hollow, or that I could just see the people outside and have them see me. Some days are better than others, but they all start and end in the same place. I either make it through standing tall, or I lose myself completely in the darkness and just pray for sleep to take me to a day when I can be outside again. It never gets any easier, either.  Never has, never will.