It’s like drowning. The waves of depression pull you underneath the water in the middle of the ocean. You want to scream for help but you know that nobody would hear you. You’re afraid that opening your mouth will cause you to choke on the water; causing more suffering and pain. No one can see you drowning because you’re 500 feet deep. So you have to make a choice. Do you let yourself sink further or do you fight to get to the surface? No one can save you but yourself. Make that choice. Fight to get to the surface. Because once you get to the surface others will see you drowning. They’ll try to help you. They will throw out a life preserver.
Now you have another choice. Do you stick to the comfort of the ocean that you’ve been fighting with for so long, or do you choose to fight even more to get to shore? No one can force you to help yourself. They can’t make you grab the life preserver. That choice is entirely yours. But if you choose to grab it and allow others to help you make your way to the solid-ground shore, which you should, you have to fight yet another battle to become aquatinted with your health. You have to be treated properly. You need to recover. That process is long, yes. But it is entirely worth it. You are meant for land, not the ocean. You are meant to strive, not drown. You are meant to beat depression, not sink into it.
Depression is exhausting. It is tiring to be fighting every minute of every day. Every day is a battle in a war that will never end. That war is depression. You will fight it, and you will win. But you will have to fight hard to do so. Harder than you think you can and harder than you have ever fought for anything before. Depression will take away from school, friendships, relationships, extra curricular activities, etc. You name it depression will affect it. How you handle the way that depression affects these things is important. You will be tired of fighting.
Believe me when I say this: it is worth it. The exhaustion it takes for you to work up the energy just to get out of bed and do poorly on a quiz or on the playing field is worth it. It is worth it because you are forming a positive habit. What is important is that you got out of bed that day. What matters is that you took a larger step in the battlefield. Push through the exhaustion, but don’t work yourself too hard. Find a balance, Listen to your body. When your body stays it’s tired and you have the chance to take a break take one. But don’t give up. Don’t move backwards. Forwards is the only direction you need to know in this war.
The battlefield is your life. The soldier is you. Everyday is a new battle. We win some and we lose some. To lose a battle is to have a bad day. To win a battle is to have a good day. Sounds simple, right? Wrong. This is the hardest war to win with the toughest battles you will ever fight. The criteria to “win” can be anything you like. It is up to you. For me it is to find happiness; that is what my journey is all about after all. When I finally find happiness, whether it be a consistent happy or a temporary happy, I will get to say that I won my war; I beat depression. The great part is that it does not have to just happen once. You can win the war several times, many times at that. The key is to not give up. If you throw in the towel to life, you lose the war, and more importantly, you will leave behind an army of loving soldiers who fought along with you and helped you get this far.
“But life isn’t all about winning”, we were always taught. And that is true. It is not really about ‘winning’ the war at all. It is about the process. It is just as much about the lost battles as the conquered ones. It is about what you learned and left, whom you befriended and became. It is about the changes and the chances, the opportunities and observations, the persistence and perseverance. There will be days when you don’t care about winning some stupid war. You do not care if you win or lose; you just want it to be over. There will be days when you feel as though you cannot continue to fight any longer. There will be days where every part of you wants to let depression win. Don't let it.
