This is InkTapper!

It's been a while, hasn't it? I apologize for my absence, it's been a very difficult three or four years. Because of the choices I've made, I cast myself out into the more violent waters that life has to offer those who've become detached from the networks of people keeping themselves afloat and it's taken a lot of effort to begin paddling back to shore. There are times the currents are gentle and the breeze is warm and you can close your eyes as the sea cradles you high above the ground and there are times the undertow rips you to pieces, drags you through the salty midnight depths of the cold and inky water where there is nowhere to hide and no way to run from the suffocating waves that fill your lungs with empty despair. When the pain is too much, when the tide has rejected you and left you to bleed ashore under the unforgiving fires of the sun, when your waterlogged frozen body is left to dry out, an offering to the native ants, when you've hit absolute zero, when you truly reach rock bottom,

the only place left to look is up.

I'm not the same person as I was when I made this group, but I have the same goals and I'm doubly determined to reach them. I've been through a ton of hurt, I've seen worlds of living corpses, shattered minds and empty hearts, glazed over eyes with nowhere to look to, nothing to see. I've seen death. I've seen blood. I've seen drug-addled minds and family outcasts with no home and no one to love except the child they couldn't take care of. I saw a world I never thought I'd leave. I saw a day that I thought would be my last, hoped would be my last.

But something dawned on me. It caught my attention with a start like a cold fist in my eye. Depression, anger, anxiety, hopelessness, jealousy, fear- it isn't a disease.

It's a drug.

What we think, what we feel, no matter how compelled we are to turn towards it, it's a choice. When people don't recover it isn't because they can't; it's because they don't want to, and it's this deceptive guise of powerlessness that makes a person so petrified to face themselves. It's true that some people are so scared to think differently that they can't pull their face out of the dark, can't turn around and get the help they need. But it's because they've given into the constant emotion that gives them a superficial hole to hide from their own minds in that they can't be helped.

I learned the hard way that there's no greater cowardice than depression, no greater weakness than anger, no greater distraction than pain, but the good news is that for those who are willing to look at themselves and realize what they need, there's a way out. The hardest part is facing your number one fear, and for most people suffering from depression that number one fear is caring. Not only caring about yourself, but about your future, about your family or your friends, becoming the person that you wish you had in your life. One who smiles, helps, works, plays and laughs, one who cares and forgives unconditionally and one who can handle pain as not a symptom but as a challenge to overcome.

If you're reading this, and you truly want to be helped, it's time to turn around and be worth something, be a helper, be kind and be happy no matter how unhappy you are.

You're already free; it isn't until you've learned that that you'll be freed.

As always, reply or come talk to me- I'm always willing to chat. Have a great day!