Sabina Benaim suffers from depression. But it's something her mum just doesn't understand.
To try and vocalise her thoughts and feelings to her mum - and pinpoint exactly what depression feels like - Sabrina Benaim wrote a poem entitled 'Explaining My Depression to My Mother'.
She then recited it to a live audience on behalf of Button Poetry.
Benaim begins by likening depression to a shape shifter, in which some days it's tiny like a firefly and other days it's as huge as a bear, which leaves her motionless.
She then goes on to discuss how anxiety comes hand-in-hand with her feelings of depression, and discusses the worries she has that surround anything and everything.
This then moves on to the feelings of isolation and loneliness she experiences on a daily basis.
But it's the end of the poem which is most poignant. When she realises that her mum will never understand and, in a way, neither will she.
We're sure Benaim's emotional delivery and the power of her words will resonate with many people who have tried countless times to explain depression to those closest to them.
Here is an excerpt from her poem:
Mom,
My depression is a shape shifter.
One day it is as small as a firefly in the palm of a bear.
The next, it’s the bear.
On those days, I play dead until the bear leaves me alone.
I call the bad days the dark days.
Mom says: "Try lighting candles".
When I see a candle, I see the flesh of a church.
The flicker of a flame, sparks of a memory younger than noon.
I am standing beside her open casket.
It is the moment I learn every person I have ever come to know will someday die.
Besides mom, I'm not afraid of the dark, perhaps that's part of the problem.
Mom says: "I thought the problem was that you can't get out of bed".
I can't. Anxiety holds me a hostage inside of my house, inside of my head.
Mom says: "Where did anxiety come from?"
Anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of town.
Depression felt obligated to bring to the party.
Mom, I am the party.
Mom, I am a party I don't want to be at.
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[H/T Metro]