To say the least, it's difficult putting into words the pain that's encapsulated the past three months.

For the past three months, I've had a difficult time living. Staying alive, going to class, being involved, acting "normal." I've been crying twice a day, stuck in a field of gray where nothing is around me besides dead flowers and broken pieces of glass. I've tried for the past three weeks to decide between trying to get people to hear me or just suffering alone.

You see, I am supposed to be totally OK and good and top of the world all the time because I'm a "student leader." For God's sake, I lead the MENTAL HEALTH COMMITTEE. So how can I, a mental health advocacy addict, be depressed, suicidal, and anxious?

That's all anyone has been telling me.

How am I supposed to feel when everyone tells me I'm supposed to be feeling OK? On most days, I wake up and have to make the decision whether or not to change out of my pajamas, brush my teeth, and/or do my hair that day. I have to make the decision whether or not to break the chains binding me to my own bed, but no one is hearing me.

I've tried explaining the hurt in my bones, in my heart, in my soul, but no one is hearing me. I try to let people in but it's like they have their eyes closed. Even those closest to me have nothing to say. I get asked, "What's going on?" and when I explain that nothing is really happening externally, everyone stops caring. No one asks anymore.

I've realized that those closest to me don't understand me. SO are they really there for me?

Sometimes when I come to the point where I'm ready to talk to someone, I can't find the words that can explain the pain I feel just by being alive. My own body cannot fathom it. Maybe I can't blame others for not understanding it. I don't even understand it sometimes.

It took me three weeks of writing and rewriting to get the words together that I think might be able to explain it best.

"On any given day, there can be nothing going wrong and/or everything going wrong, and suddenly the world, my world, is ending because you've squeezed yourself into the day. I am both in love with and disgusted by you.

My heart has held you close. You've become the security blanket that I've held late at night when I could hold nothing else close to me. I've become one with you; without you I am nothing. You've been there in my life the longest of anyone else. You are my depression.

I am in an ocean of my own tears. An ocean full of self-doubt, terrible self-image, insecurity, depression, faithlessness, and loneliness. Sometimes I wade in the water; I am comfortable. Other times, most times, I am drowning — every time I gasp for air I am using that air to yell for help but no one can hear me. I am drowning alone.

I am walking around with my backpack, this time it is full of bricks that've accumulated from my own self-destruction. I carry my journal with me often because I am hoping for someone to ask me why; hoping that in that moment I can muster up enough courage to answer the question. I probably won't."

We always tell people to reach out but then we're never ready for when they do. But I know from experience, people can only ask so many times. All I want is for someone to hear me; someone to care without being paid to.

No one understands that even those who seem the strongest suffer, too.