“Cheer up!”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Can’t you perk up a little bit?”

“Sometimes you just have to get over it.”

“You’re bringing us down.”

“People have worse problems than you.”

“The bees are dying at a rapid pace.”

These are the things you might hear from your friends and family if you’re suffering from depression in college. The last one is very, very true and something you should hear whether or not you’ve got depression, but I’ll save that for another article. It’s hard to “cheer up” or “get over it” when you feel like you’re drowning while everybody around you seems to be coasting by on rafts. Not just any rafts either, the fancy ones with a headrest and cup holders. “How is it so easy for them?” you may ask yourself. The truth is, it’s not easy for them. Your brain is playing cruel tricks on you by making you think it is. If you look closely enough, you’ll see the duct tape in all the places their fancy raft has holes. One-third of college students report feeling depressed to the point of being unable to function (Active Minds 2013).

One of the hardest parts about depression in college, at least for me personally, was a feeling of missing out. Sometimes, you can’t hang out with your friends or roommates no matter how badly you want to. There are times you feel like you need to be alone - sometimes for a couple hours and sometimes for days on end. My biggest fear was that my friends would start to think I didn’t like them or that I believed I was too good for them, and I was scared they’d begin resenting me. Luckily, I was blessed with incredible people in my life who either understand what I deal with firsthand or do their best to understand it from an outside perspective. These people shaped my entire college experience and without their patience and understanding, I’m not sure I would’ve made it through the past four years. If you don’t have friends who at the very least try to understand what you’re going through, those are not the kind of friends you need.

Some days you will feel happy and strong. It feels light in this place, like big glass windows that let in the sunshine all day long. You’ll feel the mystery weight lifted off of you, and you will feel like you can take on the world. You’ll be able to get out of bed in the morning without a struggle. You’ll shower, get dressed and find errands to run, just so you have an excuse to leave the house and show everybody how happy and strong you are. Try not to spend these days worrying about when the sadness will come back. Instead, let yourself enjoy the sunshine.

Other days, unfortunately, you will not feel happy or strong. It might feel dark in this place, like if the power went out during a thunderstorm, and you can’t light any of your candles because a candle thief stole them all. You might feel vulnerable and soft, like a bag of marshmallows that got left in the car on a hot day. You might find it hard to hold a conversation with anybody, or apply yourself at work or in class. Even little things like taking a shower or brushing your hair might feel impossible. You might cry over little things, and you might cry over nothing at all. On the days you’re feeling especially sad, getting out of bed feels like it’s taking years off your life. If you do manage to get out of bed on these days, give yourself some credit. And if you can’t make it out of bed on these days, that’s just fine too. Keep in mind that although you feel like a melty marshmallow right now, one day you will feel the sunshine again.

I learned three very important things about depression throughout my college experience:

1. You don’t have to have a reason. People will tell you to “cheer up,” to “get over it,” to “lighten up,” to “smile more,” the list goes on - and in most cases, they say it because they genuinely want you to be happy, and they may not understand that depression doesn’t work that way. They may not understand that it doesn’t take heartbreak or the loss of a loved one to spiral you into sadness. You don’t need to suffer through a Romeo & Juliet-esque tragedy to feel depressed. I have incredible friends, a supportive & loving family, and a boyfriend who’d do anything to make me happy, but depression doesn’t care about any of those things. You could be involved with extracurriculars all over campus, have a passion for your major, spend your free time volunteering & giving back to a community that’s given so much to you, and you might still feel sad or empty; depression doesn’t care about any of those things either. In many cases including my own, the reason you’re feeling depressed is because you have depression. And that is good enough.
2. Depression doesn’t feel the same for everybody. Maybe you don’t feel like fancy cupholder rafts are coasting by you. Maybe you feel blue, like it’s more than a color. Maybe you feel like you’re trapped in a hamster ball, always separated from the people around you by some kind of barrier. If you’re reading this you are probably not a hamster, so you might feel out of place in a hamster ball. Maybe you feel like the universe dropped you off wherever you are and it feels like you were left in the wrong place. Maybe you feel depression in ways I haven’t mentioned, or maybe you can’t feel anything at all. A recent hashtag on Twitter delved even further into the idea that depression manifests itself differently in everybody it touches. The hashtag is #MyDepressionLooksLike and I recommend checking it out even if you aren’t depressed personally. Depression doesn’t always look dark and scary. It could look like a messy room, a missed meal here and there, or a “maybe next time, I’m just gonna stay in tonight” text. There is no template for it the way there is for Microsoft Word brochures or paper snowflakes. Don’t let anybody tell you you’re the wrong kind of snowflake.
3. You are not alone, even when you want to be. I was fortunate enough to live in a house with my best friends. Whenever I was too sad to be alone, I couldn’t throw a rock without hitting somebody who cared for me immensely. Not only were my roommates there for me when I needed them, but they were there when I couldn’t voice it, too. If I needed to be alone, they never gave me a hard time for it. If I couldn’t make it out one night because of my anxiety or depression, they never made me feel like I was missing out. If there’s any advice I could sneak into this article, it’s to fill your college experience with people like that. People who have your best interest in mind don’t always need to understand what you’re going through to help get you through it.

You never know what someone might be going through, so try to be the sunshine in somebody’s day whenever you can. If you’re struggling with depression or know someone who might be, do your best to start a conversation. You aren’t wasting away your college experience being sad - it’s waiting to begin whenever you’re ready for it.