What if I told you depression is a mental illness? What if I told you that I’m not depressed because I have the worst life ever, or because I’m overly sensitive, but because my mind was sick? You’d probably laugh and say I’m being dramatic…

It’s okay, I won’t fault you because this is a concept many fail to fathom.

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I was left with regret after opening up to someone about me being depressed. It seemed like every outreach for help resulted in a big slap in the face. I’d literally find myself trying to convince someone I was depressed. It’s not like I wanted to have something wrong with me… I just wanted to be understood, and the fact that I wasn’t became a burden itself…

I couldn’t stand being told things like “people have it way worse than you” or asked things like “what do you have to be depressed about?”

My depression wasn’t about any of that.

I know my life isn’t that bad, I know there are many that would hate to see me go, but I just couldn’t seem to get past these uncontrollable thoughts and emotions. I despised myself even more because of this. I didn’t want to be selfish or ungrateful, but I just couldn’t reach a place of contentment or sanity.

I struggled with recurring suicidal thoughts like a bad cough. I found myself exhausted with life & looking in the mirror grew intolerable. I fell victim to an unexplainable sickness, and no one had a promising cure. I felt hopeless, and I felt alone.

I hate to say it, I knew I wasn’t, but my symptoms were all too intimate. If I couldn’t get myself back to a state of mental health, I wasn’t going to make it.

As time went on, my days only grew darker. My depression was a peaking fever.

I cried and screamed without reason, and those who were once close now seemed out of reach.

My mind had begun to deteriorate.

Suicidal thoughts turned into suicide attempts.

I was too sick to be here anymore.

To be depressed…