Dear Depression,

I started my battle with you in my freshman year of highschool. You affected a lot of people I knew, and I thought, “that will never happen to me.” It did, I began to emotionally spiral out of control. Losing your sense of who you are as a person and struggling to define your emotions feels like falling down a black hole with no end. I felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, with no idea where I was going are going, or where I would will end up.

You contributed to my best friend cutting himself, and my exes suicide attempt. I first recognized you in the picture of him cutting himself and another friend as people started to push her away. You came to me disguised as comfort when my friends started pushing me away. Coming to me, you promised to help and never leave me, when everyone I needed the most, did, and the sad thing is I believed you.

I was so manipluated by you and so deep in that the feeling of you every day felt normal to me. Walking around school with a dark cloud over my shoulder and avoiding certain classes and people was your idea of how to make me feel better. You told me "They don’t care about you anyway.” I felt like I was stuck feeling like this forever.

Having you affect my life actually had some beneficial impacts. I learned how to help my friends and understand them. No longer was I in the dark about mental health, or who it effected. It became easy to recognize when somebody was depressed without them having to say anything at all. You taught me support does much more for our friends than we think.

I know now that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but the path there is not easy. For some its filled with a numb, empty feeling every day at school, feeling unmotivated to do any school work. Some days it would be paranoia and anxiety. And then the worst of days, filled with thoughts of you trying to convince me that I couldn't do this anymore- but you were wrong.

Through you, I learned how to help myself and love myself. I found more friends that turned into family, who understood me. I even learned some people had depression and that to me was the last thing I ever would have guessed. You taught me to become stronger and work harder, because we don't choose mental illness or the every day effects it has.

But we can learn how to cope. I am grateful in a way, depression, that you came into my life. You taught me empathy towards others is critical and everyone has a story we don't know about. Thanks to you, I am now stronger than I have ever been. I am a survivor of all the bad thoughts and the bad days. You will never beat me.

Sincerely,

Me.