fighting through the feeling of nothingness

I woke up yesterday feeling fine. Jet lagged and exhausted, but fine. I went to get my car fixed and by the time I came home, I was so tired that walking up the stairs was difficult. Some days my chronic pain just likes to give me a run for my money. I collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep within minutes.
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Then I woke up. I felt different right away. Suddenly the world felt black. I didn't want to move, although I was in pain, that's not what was holding me back. I closed my eyes willing the feeling of emptiness to disappear. It didn't. I sat on my bed, staring at myself in the mirror - mainly staring at the smudged black make up under my eyes. My hand steadily wiped it away but my brain was begging me to lie down again. I looked out the window and felt that familiar nauseating feeling of nothingness. That feeling fills me with dread and makes me sick to the core. It fills me with fear that at any moment my world will collapse, and I won't be able to see or stop it from happening. I reapplied my make-up but still felt nothing. I didn't make the usual "I'm ugly" comments, I didn't look outside and think that the sky was beautiful and I didn't care what I was wearing. I didn't think or do anything. I felt absolutely nothing, like my mind had gone utterly numb from all thoughts and feelings.
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I forced myself to work and for the next 7 hours of work and babysitting, I forged ahead. I didn't go to the toilet until I had to leave because I was scared that even 3 minutes alone would bring the nothingness back. I tried to be myself, or the best me I could be with the looming darkness in the back of my mind. I finished babysitting at 11, got in my car and within 20 seconds, I felt it creeping up again. That lonely feeling that nothing feels right and that nothing feels important. I drove around for 20 minutes before going home. I haven't done that in a long time. Driving around is what I did when I was suicidal, depressed and needed something to take my mind off things. I drove trying to feel something. Anything. It was raining, pouring down actually and thoughts flashed past in my mind. Negative thoughts, the ones you hope never to think about again.
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​I sat in my car outside my house for a few moments listening to the patter of rain, it soothed me but I knew, deep down I knew, that the feeling hadn't vanished. Nothingness is a feeling completely unique to depression. One I had never felt beforehand but one that I had grown accustom to. It's indescribable, no words adequately sum up what is feels like to feel nothing at all. Today I woke up and the feeling was gone. I didn't feel heavy and the world didn't seem so terrible. I went to work, came home, napped for 4 hours (#chronicfatigueproblems), voted and saw a friend for a couple of hours. I didn't have a sense of impending doom all day but part of me was waiting anxiously for the feeling to return. 

Depression is unpredictable and it can come in waves. Yesterday felt like I was drowning but today I was back on my feet. Many months ago, a day like yesterday would have knocked me down for several days. I would have gone into the darkness and not wanted to come out. Although I am no longer in an episode of depression, I have moments. Moments where it all creeps up on me without warning, like a huge thunderstorm that blazes through only lasting an instant before the sky calms. The symptoms of my depression still roll in like a thunderstorm every now and then. It knocks me down and scares me but I have faith that it'll soon pass. Today I'm thankful it did. I'm thankful that I could look at the rainbow in tonights sky and see it's beauty. I'm thankful that I got excited to have pizza for dinner. I'm thankful that the feeling disappeared. Yesterday's world was not the same one I lived in today. Although I don't know when I'll be in that world again, I have to have faith that it'll only be for a moment.