When I tell people I have depression, they automatically picture me crying all the time. When I tell people I have depression, they tell me, “I never would have guessed, you seem so happy.” When I tell people I have a mental illness, they picture me as unstable, unable, and untrustworthy. When I say I am on medication, they picture me taking pills, dependent, sick.

The truth about me is I have depression and generalized anxiety disorder. I have lived with these conditions for most of my life. The truth about my depression is it caused years of self mutilation. It caused more than five years of eating disorders. It has caused multiple suicide attempts.

But all of that is in the past. When I was 18, I began taking my medications. They aren’t a magic fix. They are anything but. But these pills give me the ability to perform day to day tasks. In the years of my depression, I spent a lot of time denying anything was wrong and did anything I could to appear “normal.” I would cover my arms when they were covered in cuts and scars, I would deny counseling. I shut everyone out of my life because mental illness is so stigmatized I was afraid of seeking help for fear of being labeled as “crazy.” Dealing with my illness I have lost my memory, my motivation, hope for the future, friends, my grades dropped. I was one of the lucky ones who got help before it turned into addiction. My coping after I quit cutting turned to starvation. Starving was one thing I could control and no one could take it away from me. I was already fat, it couldn’t hurt to lose a few pounds. Nobody noticed. Then it turned to partying every weekend. I wasn’t old enough to drink, but there I was every weekend in my friend’s garage drowning my sorrows in Jägerbombs and pot. I remember vividly one night during my senior year telling my friends that “i hate myself and nothing I do could make that any worse.” I followed it with a laugh to cover my tracks. The crazy thing about depression is how good we get at hiding it.

I remember crying in the bathroom and skipping class for anxiety attacks. I remember crying in a teacher’s classroom. I remember talking about eating disorders and hoping no one would point the finger at me. I remember getting in a fight with my brother before school one day over a pair of headphones. I stormed out and tried to walk to school--forgetting it was 10 miles away, and I remember my mother picking me up on the side of the road still crying. I remember crying a lot. I still cry, not nearly as much. I remember the nights spent on the phone with the suicide hotline. Those nights saved my life--literally. I remember getting pulled over for blowing a stop sign after school. I remember my brother being afraid because he’d never seen me cry that much. And I remember telling the officer I was going to lay in the street and wait for a car to come. I remember when I was 12 and tried to drown myself in our family pool. I remember when I was 15 and tried to down a bottle of ibuprofen not knowing it couldn’t kill me instantly. I remember feeling alone. I remember being the butt of everyone’s jokes. I remember being bullied to the point that I changed schools after sophomore year. I remember my so-called friends not understanding why I was always tired.

If I could tell the girl crying in the bathroom anything, I would tell her to hold on. I would tell her as cliche as it sounds, it gets better. Someday, you won’t be hiding in the bathroom or shutting the world out. You won’t have to hide your sexuality, you won’t be the butt of the jokes, and you find your voice. When you find that voice, everything else falls into place. My life isn’t perfect. But I never saw myself graduating high school. I never saw myself getting into a relationship or having great friends. But as I write this, I am cuddled with my beautiful girlfriend with our dogs, in a cute little house, starting my second semester of sophomore year of college. If anyone is where I have been, I promise you there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is hope. Even if you can’t see it, if you can’t find it right now, just wait out this storm and you’ll see. This is my story, this is my illness, and I will not be ashamed.