For most of my teenage and adult life (technically, for the last 10 years) I have been followed by the dark cloud that is depression. Sometimes I feel like just when I’m starting to see the light, depression swoops back in and carries me further away. It has been a constant battle with myself, and often that battle seems like it has no end. But throughout all of the hardships, near defeats, and moments where I wanted nothing but to give up, depression has taught me some very valuable lessons.

1. It’s okay to be selfish. This was so hard for me to realize because I’m a people pleaser. I thought that putting my own interests first and taking care of myself was somehow wrong. Instead of putting care and love into my own well-being, I just projected that onto others because I thought that was what needed to be done. Then, I realized that the one ally that I had in the world was myself, and when I was spending all my time focusing on others, there was no one to focus on me. It’s perfectly okay to put your needs and wants over someone else’s because self-care is important. Now, it’s also okay to still want to do things and help others, but that doesn’t mean self-neglect. This is one of the things that I struggle the most with, for sure.
2. You have to learn to love yourself. In the past few years, I have gotten so angry with myself over this one. Like all other twenty-something-year-olds, I want that intimacy that comes with finding a partner. Sometimes we need someone to love us, and when I’d express that desire to my therapist they’d say 'you have to love yourself, first’. I thought that was complete bull, and I usually got angry. In the past year, though, I’ve fallen in love with myself. That sounds conceited, I know, but I love to just spend time with me. Every day I find something else new about myself that I didn’t know before, and that makes me love myself even more. Do I still want to find that connection? Obviously! That desire has never gone away, but now I’m more prepared. I feel sorry for the guy that I finally do meet because he is going to have to love me more than I love myself, and I’m a pretty hard person to compete with.
3. If it doesn’t make you happy, don’t do it. For so long, I found that I was doing things that I felt obligated to do. I was always doing things because I “should.” Then, a brilliant person told me to “stop should all over myself”. Still, when I get into a negative spiral, and the “should” starts coming, I remind myself to stop shouldn't all over myself. It makes me laugh, and I take a step back to evaluate why I think I “should” do the thing. Honestly, the best thing that ever came out of therapy was that I eliminated “should” from my vocabulary.
4. Erase the negativity from your life. Negative energy is just a breeding ground for those bad thoughts that get the best of us. Surround yourself with people and things that make you happy and are a positive influence in your life. Just eliminating the negative stuff changes your whole vibe and makes your mood lift tremendously.
5. Friends will come and go. I know that is hard to believe because it seems like some people are going to be there forever. Some are. What you need to do is figure out which of those friends are the ones that you want to hang on to and let the others go. It might not seem like you can function without them, but sometimes once they are gone you change for the better. On the other hand, let people some into your life. Don’t close yourself off from the world. You might be surprised who you build a bond with if you just open yourself up to the new and unknown.
6. Don’t let the fear of failure keep you from trying something. You won’t succeed at everything that you do. Trust me, I know I’m not going to be a world-famous basketball player, but that never stopped me from trying to play for a season. Sometimes that thing that you thought you’d fail at ends up being a great source of accomplishment. I never thought that I’d be a dancer, let alone a choreographer. And if I would not have drowned out the voice of depression that was telling me that I was going to fail, I would not have gotten to enjoy the many opportunities and people that dance has brought into my life. I have depression to thank for me being stubborn, and wanting to prove myself wrong.
7. You’re not always going to be the best. As a perfectionist, this is hard to accept. This also goes back to #6. Don’t always try things with the mindset that you’re going to be excellent at it, and don’t get upset with yourself when you aren’t. It’s okay to be average at something, or maybe not good at it at all. The important thing is that you tried and broke out of the box that you were building around yourself.
8. Don’t be embarrassed to be yourself. I wish when I was a teenager someone would have told me that it was perfectly fine to not “fit in” with everyone else. Once I was in college where being “different” is actually encouraged, I found that I was much happier. Now, I’m okay to admit that I am a 22-year-old with a crazy love for Harry Potter, collecting books that I’ll never read, and buying ridiculous amounts of pens just because I like to see how they write. In a society that tells us we all need to fit into a certain model, it is perfectly fine to break out and be yourself. Be proud of who you are, and embrace the unique things that make you who you are.
9. Become comfortable with being with yourself. For a very long time, being alone scared me. I always wanted to be with my family or with my close friends. Going home and being alone made me anxious because I was afraid of myself in some ways. This year I did something that I never thought possible: I moved into an apartment all by myself. It is the happiest that I have ever been. I love to spend time with myself. It goes back to that thing about loving yourself. Just like you take the time out to spend time with your family and friends to let them know that you care about them, you have to make sure that you are taking time to give that same attention to yourself.
10. When someone tells you that you won’t succeed, prove them wrong. Sometimes that person telling you that you’re going to fail is a family member, a teacher, a peer, or even yourself. Those are negative people you need to cut out from your life. Maybe it’s spiteful of me, but when someone tells me that I can’t do something I put more effort in proving them wrong.

Sometimes depression makes you hate yourself. I’ve done my fair share of self-loathing. In the process, I have learned many things. I think mental illness makes us look at things in a different light. As much as I hate having depression, I would not be the same person that I am today if it weren’t for the struggles that I’ve gone through because of depression. Thank you, depression, for teaching me some of the most valuable lessons in life, and helping me to find myself.