I once went to a therapist and all she asked about was how I'm doing in school, what my interests are, if I had friends, the usual. She sat and listened to me answer all these questions. I told her I do well in school, I participate in clubs and athletics, I have many friends, etc. she stopped writing and looked at me with a concerned gaze.
"You have high-functioning depression."
Confused, I asked her to explain.
She said my type of depression scares people the most because you don't see us slip away and you'll never know what's going on. There are no signs and we keep ourselves busy all the time to avoid the depression. We're known as the overachievers in life and we will never fit in the perfect picture of what depression looks like on people. We seem so normal as we fall deeper into depression.
But it's scary for us, too. We're out with friends laughing and making memories, but something in us just turns on and in seconds we aren't happy anymore. We show all this self-confidence, but sometimes at 3 a.m. we stare in the mirror and feel so shitty. We could be crying all night but through the tears, we're still studying because we need to pass our exam the next morning.
We feel like we're drowning in oxygen. We feel a tornado in our stomachs. We run marathons with an anchor tied around our ankle.
We keep moving. We keep our plates full. We keep succeeding.
But we never recover, we just find more distractions and more opportunities for achievement.
Listen to someone who went through this, you nee to stop finding distractions and face your illness. It's an on-and-off battle with yourself for years, but one day you'll win. I promise.
