It was winning again. She was in the dark. Fretfully comfortable. Alone, with the despair drowning her, she willed it for her lungs and take her away. She stared unseeing at the slits of light around the edges of the door. She knew there was light outside, but she couldn't bare it. Far too garish and ebullient in its brightness. Sometimes the light around th edges would get so bright it made her cry. She didn't understand how other people could survive in the light, the bittersweet happiness they had achieved, didn't they know what she did? That happiness is only temporary, someone or something will soon be along to take it away and murder you inside. Why bother to search for it, long for it when it is so utterly fragile and untenable?
She couldn't comprehend living in the light. The darkness offered no hope, no dreams just an unending implosion of self-pity. That felt safe to her. This way she couldnt get hurt because she had nothing to lose. She was protected from the joy-monster it had no interest in taking anything she had. Even the joy-monster was glad for her to keep her misery to herself.
There was one thing that bothered her endlessly though. Having never sought professional help for her mental fraility, she knew that there were millions of people in the world who were so much worse off than her, how did she have the audacity to be sad. Her problems were few, she was just innately unhappy. She had a life many people would wish for. A good job, a loving family and husband yet all she wanted to do was push it all away, and be cocooned in her melancholia. She was absolutely sure that if she ever went to her exteremly unsympathetic GP, that a.) she wouldn't know where to start and b.) they would ask her to leave and remind her that a doctors surgery was for sick people!
So she internalised it all, endlessly swallowing her own cries of desperation. At work she appeared almost cheerful. Her family would not have been strong enough to cope, not since their father had died.  So to them she tried to be a strong, dependable figure. To her long-suffering husband she was a complete cow. Her behaviour was so erratic, and unreasonable but he equally unreasonably was prepared to put up with it. He didn't deserve the treatment he received she was burdened terribly by the guilt it laid on her. Their house was small and consequently had a claustrophobic quality. She couldn't get away from him when she needed to. She didn't like to cry, and to cry in front of him would only have worried him so she held them in. If she allowed the tears to flow she felt defeated and as though she had to admit to herself how low she was. If she didn't cry she could pretend she was ok, to herself and others. There was a genuine belief that the tears she was holding in were turning to poison and causing all the anger and rage  in her to swell. Her husband was hoping they could start a family but she didn't want a baby to live in her belly with all the hatred and poison that was coursing through her veins. It wouldn't survive or so she thought. All the negativity breeding inside her she knew could be purged with tears, but she felt like she'd have to cry for months to get it all out, and if she left any in it would be fatal. She would be empty, devoid of energy and unable to recover if it the remnants took hold. It would finish her. People often say " have a good cry love, you'll feel so much better." Utter tosh! When her dad had died she didn't think she'd survive the week. She got through the year by living in complete denial that he was gone. After a year the wound was no longer fresh, she could stomach thinking about his death, but felt overwhelmed with guilt for forgetting him for all that time. She loved him devotedly, happiness and hope had died with him, she knew all the goodness had left the earth when he did.
She had only been aware of the bleak blackness from that moment.
Before then she had popped in and out as though it was a waiting room and she knew she wouldn't be there long. Sometimes she'd be waiting weeks, sometimes years, but she sub-conciously knew it was temporary and that any minute something great would be along to entice her out. She wasn't always aware she was in there, until she saw the edges of light around the door reminding her she was on the wrong side of it.