A prayer of depression

Dear God,

I am at work now and I want to scream. I want to bang my head against my desk until I am bleeding, until I pass out. I want to scream at the top of my lungs from the pain. Where does my sadness come from? Why does it eat me alive?

God, please stop the pain. It never, ever ends. I am so small and so useless and so scared.

I want to smash things with my fists. I want to yell at people for no reason. I feel like I am being torn apart and I cannot explain why.

I spent my lunch break alone in my car. Over and over, the same image in my mind: Pressing a gun to my head. Pulling the trigger. Blackness. Eternal peace.

Would others care? I don't know. My family would, I know. But I can't live for them. I have to have something inside me, some source to quench this horrible thirst I feel in my soul. I hate myself so, so much, God.

Why did you create me and why do you keep me alive? I feel like I am nothing. I feel like I am garbage. All I do is feed off others and destroy good things. It feels like the world would be a better place without me in it. Oh, I know my family would hurt. But in the larger scheme, what purpose do I serve? What use is there for me? Don't I just drag down everything and everybody?

I read the obituaries in the paper, God. You end the lives of so many good people, people with families, spouses, children. You rub out their lives like you were swatting a fly, and yet they are missed so much more than I would ever be. God, please, don't take one of them again. Next time you want to take a person like that, take me instead. Give me cancer, leukemia, I don't care. Let ME shoulder that pain, because I want it and I deserve it.

I don't want to hurt like this anymore. Take it away, God. End it. End ME. Erase this awful mistake from the pages of the book of life. Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it. Stop my hurting. I cannot bear it.