The forever expanding hole

While I don't remember the best description of depression that I've ever read, I do remember the concept. Basically, this woman said there was a hole inside her, an emptiness that could never be filled. No matter what she did, who she was with, good/bad moments, the hole was there - she forever walked around empty inside. It is dead on, the concept has remained with me since I first heard it. I may add something to it - say the hole is forever expanding, at small sometimes immeasurable rate, but it is doing just that.

I felt it last night as I sat in the darkness of my downstairs office. I stood and looked out the door - the stillness of suburban life. I opened and walked to the backyard, leaned against the fence and observed nothing. It was eerily quiet - everyone in bed waiting to attack the next day. I felt empty and I knew what the night ahead and inevitable morning would bring - dread. It has become a familiar scene where I wake up, unable and unwilling to rise - eventually spending the whole day lying there.

It is astonishing to think how long this has been going on - decades as I think back to high school where I wouldn't go to classes for days, yet I always made the honor roll and nobody really questioned the absences. College was a repeat as I dodged classes for weeks - some I rallied to succeed and pass, others I never returned to. What if the mood could have been corrected? What could I have done? Does it really matter? I am not the only one with these problems, but I now realize there is no way out - nothing I try ever helps, I can't even identify a pattern.