My wife has battled depression off and on for years. At one point early in our dating career, she had a major depressive episode - and by major, I mean majorly scary. She was never suicidal - as she puts it "it's not that I wanted to die, it's just that I didn't care if I lived" - but she was anxious, scared, and overall, numb. I was her life line. I still remember those long, horrible conversations where I tried to convince her that there were good things in the world, that people didn't hate her, battling against the steamroller of her depression, all set in a long, dark, cold Ohio winter...
It was a bad scene.
Eventually, I also had to come to grips with my own salvation complex. The evil mouths were not being fair to the narrator, but it's still a quality that must be grappled with.
All in all, I really loved this story. It was creepy, atmospheric, and true enough to be horrible.