“Its so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That's above and beyond everything else, and it's not a mental complaint -- it's a physical thing, like it's physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don't come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people's words do; they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser; you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet.”
― Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

Imagine that feeling you have when your alarm goes off in the morning. Imagine the dread you feel in your stomach right before you are handed back a test that you know you didn't do so hot on. Imagine what it feels like to have your significant other leave you. Imagine what it feels like to have your best friend walk out of your life. Now take all of those feelings, combine them into one and multiply that feeling by 700. That is what it feels like to have depression. Depression is caused by various factors, including chemical imbalances, past abuse, death and genetics. It is estimated that depression affects 350 million people worldwide, and I am one of them.

Having a mental illness like depression isn't fun and it isn't something that should be glorified. It is not something that is fun, nor is it a quirky personality defect. It is a reality, a reality for those like myself who suffer, and it is also a reality for those around us. It is a reality for family members, friends, significant others and even strangers who can seek out that the feelings you have are not considered "normal."

A mental illness takes control of your life. It makes you feel numb, weak and degraded. When you have a mental illness and an episode happens, it makes you feel selfish, it makes you feel hopeless and worst of all, it makes you feel worthless. It's a cliché saying but it is completely relevant when someone describes depression as "drowning but being able to see everyone around you breathing." The worst part about depression episodes are when nobody understands what you go through. You get strange looks, you feel alone and you hear comments like, "Someone has it worse than you," and "Be happy you're not dead." When in reality, that's all you want to be: dead.

Day by day you live, but you're not living. You walk around, but you're not you; you're a shell of what you used to be before everything changed. You can't tell the difference between what life is now and what it used to be when you were happy. The scariest thing about depression is that you don't know when you'll be happy again. Depression doesn't allow you to "see the light at the end of the tunnel." One day you'll feel fine and then the next you'll just cry for no reason.

Depression affects 14.8 million people in America every year. If you or anyone that you know has thoughts of self-hate or that are depressed, don't be afraid to talk to someone. Just remember that you're not alone.