Mental illness isn’t a taboo or a trend or an excuse. Depression is more than just being “sad;” it’s staring hopelessly into the abyss painfully sure that there is no light at the end. Anxiety is more than just being “nervous;” anxiety a hearing a teacher ask, “who here is good at mental math?” and becoming paralyzed with fear for no good reason. Panic disorders are rushing to the hospital at 2 a.m. because you feel so trapped inside of yourself that you physically cannot breathe. Mental illness is more than just mental, it distorts your ability to conceptualize the emotional, physical, and social world around you. It distorts your perception of yourself.

The first time that I ever realized there may be something abnormal about the way my body, mind, and spirit absorb and perceive the world around me, I was sixteen. I had been working less than usual that summer and had taken a job as a babysitter part-time for a close family friend. The girls I babysat were delightful and usually took to playing Barbie dolls (one which they even named after me) and binging shows on Netflix. Needless to say, the job was easy, but it was also genuinely fun. I never had a negative moment over there. Until I did.

I distinctly remember sitting on the couch while the girls were watching "The Suite Life of Zach and Cody" (they’re welcome), drinking lemonade, and playing the day away. They left the room only briefly to pick out new clothes for their Barbies. The younger of the two said something sharp on her way out, and I laughed.

It happened almost as soon as she rounded the corner. I couldn’t laugh anymore. I was experiencing what I now know as a depressive episode. I was immediately stuck with this raw, hollow sadness deep in my chest. My heart felt like it was being dragged down in chains. I felt completely immobilized both physically and emotionally. I didn’t have a reason or desire to feel this way. I didn’t know why I felt this way. I didn’t want to feel that way.

This feeling was not unfamiliar to me. I had felt this way often at various points in my life but had previous dismissed it as something perhaps hormonal or even normal. At the time, I didn’t really know any better. I truly believed everyone felt this way at various points in their lives (or at least, I didn’t know it was abnormal to feel the way I did).

I pulled myself together and faked my way through the rest of my time with the girls, but when I got home, I broke down. For the first time in my life, it became clear to me that there was something fundamentally wrong with me. I felt very lost, afraid, and mostly alone. I also felt angry—angry that I was dealing with something beyond what I could personally help or control or tame.

Eventually that anger is what drove me to understand. I was finally compelled to explain this all to my mother who knew about the various highs and lows throughout my teenage years. There were various incidents of hair-cutting or mental and emotional collapses. I remember throwing myself around my room and screaming for no reason. I remember sitting in my room for entire days listening to sad music with the lights off. I remember honestly feeling hopelessly, batshit crazy. She heard me out completely and graciously listened to me well enough to know that I truly was not okay. We scheduled my first appointment with a psychiatrist who put me on an anti-depressant medication that we tweaked throughout the next few months to get me to a balanced state of mind, and then added a mood stabilizer to fight rapid mood swings.

Now, I am coming up on three years with this medication, and it has honestly saved my life in ways I cannot even begin to get into for fear they would take up the remainder of this article. I have friends who disagree with medicating the mentally ill, but there are times when I genuinely wonder if I would still be here today without it.

To anyone apprehensive about seeking medicinal help, know this: This medicine does not change who I am or influence me to feel any certain way. When I am off my medication, my body feels either dangerously sad or dangerously happy, even though I do not necessarily feel either. The medication makes sure that my body and mind act as one. Everyday, I wake up and take my medication. it is a constant reminded that I am fighting relentlessly to be the person that I want to be.

I still have off days. I have had days where I get busy and forgot to take medicine. I have had days where I honestly just got so fucking tired of being mentally ill that I skipped taking my medicine entirely. I have crawled underneath my bed, sobbing because my pill bottle fell off of my bed, picked it up, took a pill, and collapsed on the floor out of emotional exhaustion. But with medication, these days are now very, very rare.

I am very grateful for all of the love, patience, support, and understanding I have received throughout the years of trying to learn balance in my life. If you are reading this because we share an illness or you too are mentally ill, I hope you take comfort in knowing that you are not alone. This isn’t easy. It’s actually really hard and debilitating, and it’s not fair either. But these illnesses exist within us, which means we are the only ones who can help ourselves. We have to be able to recognize our own mental illnesses and befriend them rather than try to fight them. We have to be able to forgive ourselves for being ill, forgive the world around us for being unintentionally and impossibly triggering, and we have to forgive the universe for plaguing us with these conditions. I have to believe that we were given this burden to weigh out some of the wonderful gifts we were given as well. We were given this burden because we can handle it. And we CAN handle it. You can handle it. Even when the whole world feels like it’s crumbling around you and you are crumbling with it.