There are a lot of things to joke about, but depression is not one of them.

Being a person who suffers from depression has a deeper mean on your life than what most people think. People who are depressed are trapped in a world unlike the world that anyone else is perceiving. To them, the world is dark, hopeless, has no meaning…

And it never gets any better.

Imagine waking up on the day after a breakup. Life now seems impossible. The world is dark. You seem to have no hope. What are you going to do with yourself? You look at your phone and know there is no good morning text from the significant other. There is a feeling of despair deep in your stomach. In your mind, you don’t know how anything could ever be good again.

Imagine this feeling being what you experience every day. Every morning. Every night. Despair. Hopelessness. Loneliness. And the feeling that it will never improve.

A lot of people describe depression as a feeling of drowning. I can personally say that this is the most accurate physical description I have ever seen. Depression is falling into the deep end with no hope of getting out.

Depression is losing hope.

Depression is darkness.

Depression is suffocation.

If you have never experienced this emotion, you may not understand how truly oppressive it is. But it crushes the soul and mind. It forces a person into isolation. It brings out insecurities that will not cease to punish your ego.

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, 40 million adults (meaning a person that is eighteen years of age or older) suffer from depression. In total, that is 18% of our population.

I am one of those.

For multiple years, I spent day after day drowning in a sea of emotion that I could not control. It was a time in my life where reflection is a time of despair. Most of the time, I spent my afternoons in the dark, in bed, and alone.

The thing I want to let everyone know about depression is that it is not hopeless. There is a light at the end of every tunnel.

Experiencing depression may suffocate you for a time being, but it is not the end of the world. When someone is depressed, it is important for them to not lose hope. To not drown. To not become trapped in their emotional devastation.

If you are depressed, reach out for help. Saying that you are in the deep is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, addressing your emotional state is one of the greatest signs of strength that a person can show. There is never a time that saying you need a helping hand to pull you out of the deep will be a burden.

I believe that one of the greatest stigmas about depression in society is that it is a sign of weakness. Living with depression is a sign of strength. Living a life of sadness is a battle that you have no hope in winning and if you continue the battle, you are a real warrior.

One of the greatest choices that I made was to reach out for help. Opening up about the emotional state that I was in at the time when my depression was at its darkest point saved me from ultimately drowning in the water.

There are a plenty of people in the world who are ready to help. Even though depression feels like a state of being alone, it is not. There is a community of people ready to surround you and help you out.

One of the problems everyone with depression has to face is that it never permanently goes away. Depression is a lifelong battle. Even after you find a way out of the deepest parts of despair, there is always another day to tackle. This is part of what makes those with depression true warriors.

The hope for depression is that you are never alone. No matter how dark it may seem, there are always people in your life who want to help you.

I learned through my experience with depression that my mother was always wanting to reach out and help me. There was never a moment in my life when she did not want to support me. I had not realized that when I was drowning in my emotions. I was lost in emotions that made it unbearable to consider the fact that someone could care about what I was going through.

My mother has been my support through each wave of depression since I have started treatment. She understands that it is important to have the unconditional support and love in my life to help realize that the feelings I experience do not have to define my day to day life. She has helped me to realize that despite the emotional turmoil that I go through, I am able to live a happy and successful life.

Living with depression, I have the ability to tell you that there is hope of living a happy life. As I have gone through my first month of college, I have learned that happiness is just around the corner in life. Even though I experienced a variety of negative emotion in high school, now that I am in college I see that there is happiness all around me.

There is always a way to happiness in your life. What you must remember is to find your own happiness. Let it absorb the water that is drowning you and soak up the sunshine in life.