Depression and narcissism are very similar things and can live quite symbiotically within one person. They both hunger and feed for and on other people’s sadness and narcissism. They both separate oneself from the rest of the world and make oneself feel misunderstood and different. They both are very poisonous and, if left unchecked, could lead to collateral damage. When we are depressed, we surround ourselves with things and people that will allow that depression to stay. That’s because depression feels very good sometimes. It’s almost like a punishment for something you’ve done, something you can’t fix, and that punishment can feel so great and necessary. The guilt you feel is like some kind of god. It hungers for some kind of payment, some kind of sacrifice, but it’s stomach stretches for miles and miles and no matter how long you stay in bed or how many pills you take or glasses of wine you drink or how many lines appear across your skin, it won’t become any smaller. The only thing that you can do to make it become livable is to forgive yourself and to make yourself better, or, in other words, to starve it, because guilt can only live off of pain and misery and never on happy thoughts or feelings. These things you’ve done, or the things that have been done to you, be they your fault or some other’s, aren’t erasable, and you need to understand that so that you can move on and make a better future. Spit out the poisons in your life and try to realize that you’re still worth having good things and a happy life. Narcissism, though similar in ways, is still a slightly different beast. It’s this false confidence, a pile of gems, if you will, that you, a dragon, pulls up and around its belly in order to protect itself. And, although they are very pretty to look at and offer quite a bit of protection, these jewels do give you a false sense of bravado, and bravado has a funny way of attracting enemies. Knights will come from all over the country to kill a fire-breathing dragon whose list of kills stretches into the thousands. No, it’s much better to let down your guard a bit, loosen up, and be yourself. You’ll find yourself having much truer and stronger friends than before and a whole lot less enemies, or, at the very least, less dangerous ones. Friends, you see, offer much more protection than silly gems.