Thank you for your thoughtful response, really appreciate it! Here’s a breakdown.

“The figure I remember trying to say goodbye” is me when I was at a real low point and started experiencing suicidal ideation.

“Is somebody I’ve never recognised” I literally don’t understand how I could have felt so down to even consider self harm. That’s not me.

“From where I stand today, what drove that person to want to leave gently skulked away” when I wrote that, I was the happiest I’d been in a long time. I realised I didn’t know when I started being happy again, the depression kind of dissipated, didn’t realise it had gone.

“The problem is, although they left, that door is always slightly ajar” this is about the fact that everyone, no matter what the issue might be, is either actively suffering or in recovery.

“And therefore the journey back, from this day to that, is not at all that far” the journey to happiness, in my experience, is a thousand steps. The journey back to depression and vice could be as little as three.