Self-affliction.

I spend a lot of time sitting and thinking, silence coiled around my bones. And despite the depths to which my thoughts drag themselves in their attempts to ease my pain, I know nothing will come of crawling through the mud of my own mind. And I think that's what depression is: gazing at yourself from above, drowning in a pit, and trying so desperately to pull yourself from the hole by a noose, but at the same time, understanding that any attempts are futile. Because you ARE the one in the hole and YOU are the one who dug it. It is torture, trying to play the hero, when you are also not only the victim, but the assailant.