This is not a pity post or a cry for help. This is a call for awareness about a disease often left unacknowledged and unseen. Depression is an illness misunderstood, with the word "depressed" thrown around constantly: "I'm so depressed today. I just finished a really sad episode of 'Grey's Anatomy'." I could go on and on about how this stigma of mental illness should be eliminated since it is the 21st century and medicine is far too advanced to not recognize mental illness. However, what I would like to bring to awareness is that this illness caused by low serotonin levels in the brain can actually be permanently life-altering.

I am grateful to have experienced unbearable pain at such a young age. I am grateful to have learned to understand others and to empathize with everyone, as everyone could be in the same unbearable pain that I used to believe only affected me. I am also grateful to live in an age where science acknowledges what some may call "emotional problems" for what it is: an illness. It may seem like an extreme word- illness. This illness has infiltrated my personality and changed me for the better, but still stays with me and always will.

Depression is not curable. Medicine helps temporarily, but along with medicine comes side effects, withdrawals, and personality changes (for many, but not all). A part of me will always be suffering, but after four years of living with depression, it is now manageable.

With depression, getting out of bed is harder. Sometimes even having the energy to socialize is just harder. Everything seems harder and every body part seems heavier. Often you are told you are hormonal, overly emotional, and/or dramatic. Until you are told by a medical professional that you have depression and come to terms with the illness, the symptoms can cause guilt and frustration.

It comes in waves, even on medication. Without medication, little seems different. From someone who has seen all sides and all perspectives of life with the illness, little changes with or without medication.

I would like to think it gets better, and to some extent it does, but it's always there. It never goes away and I believe it can never truly be cured. The pain, or the memory thereof, stays with you forever.

So while people will most likely (and usually without intending offense) continue to blindly misuse the term "depressed," other people will be suffering from the incurable illness that infiltrates the mind and takes away joy. Yes, it can be managed, but it is not so simply cured and should be acknowledged.