A Different Kind of War

A Different Kind of War

We speak of wars,

Conflicts

And fears.

With each other.

But what happens

When the conflict is

Only

Your own?

This is a different kind of war.

When the enemy

Is yourself.

How do you fight?

Should you fight?

When not the fate of millions,

But the fate of just one

Hangs in the balance,

Which decision is the correct one?

This is a different kind of war.

Lack of action

Is a crime against

Yourself. But what

Action is the right one?

To fight back is

To take control.

But is lack of fighting

Giving up?

This is a different kind of war.

When the enemy is yourself,

Fighting is uncomfortable.

But lack of action

Is equally torturous.

If you don't fight,

You are considered weak.

But sometimes the best you can do

Is just stay alive.

This is a different kind of war.

This war has no guns

No bombs, no government.

It has no civilians

And no soldiers.

It has only yourself

And the war within.

This war is not for religion

Or politics, or land.

This is a different kind of war.

This war is invisible

So the fight must be as well.

To fight back

Would be beyond difficult.

But not to fight back

Would produce a result that

Nobody wants.

That nobody speaks of.

This is a different kind of war.

So what to do?

To fight, or flee?

From the outside,

The answer is obvious.

But the decision is not

Always so easy.

When fighting takes just as much out of you

As not fighting-

It’s a different kind of war.

But to fight is to say

“This life is mine.”

To fight is to accept

That you deserve to be happy.

To fight is to hear

The voice of your future child

Saying

“I love you.”

So I will fight.

I will fight in this different kind of war.

And I can only hope that

I will win.

I was inspired to write this piece during a two-week long period of time in which one of my classes was studying wars, war literature, and the psychological effects of war. Some of the main readings that drove me to write were The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Urlsua K. LeGuin, and The Illiad by Homer. The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is an excellent short reading that I highly recommend to everyone. It forces readers to examine their own moral compasses and their sense of right and wrong. Reading these true and fictional accounts from soldiers, civilians, or otherwise reminded me of how it can feel to battle depression. I'm not in any way saying that having depression is like fighting in a physical war. However, many of the psychological effects of soldiers reminded me of my own after dealing with depression for so long.

This poem is written from the point of view of a person battling depression. I chose to write in this fashion because I wanted to create a war scene with fear aspects similar to that of The Iliad and The Things They Carried while still creating an interesting and unique perspective. I was also influenced by The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas because of the fact that the people walking away were entering the unknown and making the decision to leave was probably one of, if not the, hardest decision they ever had to make in their lives. Depression is something I’ve fought with for my entire life and sometimes it really can feel like a war, so this poem also has a personal connection for me.

The fight with depression isn’t with an army or with a society, it’s with oneself. Sometimes the greatest battle every day is simply getting out of bed and not allowing the depression to get the best of you. The dilemma faced by the narrator in A Different Kind of War is meant to express the choice that many people with depression face daily: Do I fight against my brain, or do I stay in bed and allow it to run my life today? This choice is similar to the one that citizens of Omelas face as well pertaining to whether or not they should stay in the city despite knowing that their joy is ensured by suffering, or if they should leave despite not knowing what the outside world holds for them.

I was most heavily influenced by The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas because of the aspect of choice. Despite what many stereotypes dictate, many people who are affected by depression are not suicidal. However, that choice to live life rather than just survive it is one these people face almost every day. The innocent child in Omelas can be compared to the non-depressed person inside everyone dealing with depression. Though a depressed state of mind isn’t the joyful Omelas, the aspect of remaining there is the same. For someone being affected by depression, it’s much easier to just stay in bed all day and do nothing than it is to force themselves to go out and be a part of society most of the time. In order to save that innocent person inside though, that’s exactly what has to be done- fighting.

The creative process for me involved a lot of self-reflection as well as using what I know about the experiences of others with depression. One of the most challenging things was trying to make the poem illustrate many different aspects of depression. I think that many people have a pretty good general idea of what it’s like to experience mental illness especially in today’s society where there is less of a stigma attached to the concept. I wanted lots of different kinds of people, especially those who have experienced depression, to be able to relate to A Different Kind of War. Sometimes depression can make one feel very alone, so I wanted to also use the poem as a tool to show people that they are never alone in their struggle, no matter how much it may feel that way.

Loneliness, in my opinion, is a secondary psychological effect of depression. People need to “belong” to be emotionally healthy. This can be a belonging to a workplace, a family, a community, a school, a club, or any number of other organizations or combinations of these. Depression can more often than not cause one to isolate oneself. This isolation causes the secondary effect of extreme loneliness. Depression itself does not make a person feel alone. Rather, it is the behaviors, or lack thereof, that depression brings on that causes one to become isolated and then lonely.

Depression also causes one to carry a lot on the mind. The Things They Carried reminded me a little bit of how depression works. Depression causes a person to dwell on certain problems or ideas that have significance to that person. In The Things They Carried the things carried had a positive significance to the carrier with the purpose to provide comfort or security in the environment of war. Depression, on the other hand, causes a person to carry negative things or thoughts on the mind. A person may dwell on the fact that he or she is being unproductive, a burden to others, bothersome, useless, and/or altogether a second rate person. Carrying these thoughts is exhausting, but unlike physical burdens, they cannot simply be cast away to lighten the load.

My wish for "publishing" this poem is that it will give readers a sense of hope. If I could describe depression in one word, it would be hopelessness. This trap is terrifyingly easy to fall into, and equally as terrifyingly difficult to get out of. A Different Kind of War begins by painting a picture of what it’s like to experience depression. As it progresses though, the tone lightens and by the end, the narrator has decided to fight back against his or her depression in the hope of a better future. I would hope that a reader would read this poem and want to find that same second chance and will to fight back that the narrator finds.