It typically sleeps within me -- that horrible monster -- snoring and snoozing away as I'm out and about, enjoying my day. It's been dormant for a long time now, so long that I'd almost forgotten what it looked like. Until one day, it woke from its seemingly eternal hibernation to wreak havoc on everything I'd built up. It ravaged its surroundings in a blinding rage until only grayed out, ashen landscapes laid beneath its wretched claws.

Pretty scary image, right? Yeah, it came to me in a dream one night. If you didn't catch it (which I'm sure you did) it's a metaphor for depression, which to no doubt I've been experiencing lately.

I've always kind of struggled to process the idea of depression being an actual medical thing. I mean I've been depressed before, but actually having depression is a completely different ballpark. According to this article (http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/what-is-depression) by WebMD, depression is actually a chemical imbalance in the brain, which is really important to know, because we depressed can't really... do anything about that, y'know?

But now I've kind of experienced the real monster that is Depression. It's horrible, to say the least. It isn't just being mega sad and moping around. When it hit me, it hit me hard. It wasn't just a wave of sadness, it was an overpowering push off the edge of emotional stability. My emotions flung themselves around in a cage match inside my head. One minute I'm sitting broken in my bed, holding back tears as not to disturb my neighbors, and the next minute I'm ready to punch a hole in the wall and break literally everything around me. It was wild. And then everything just kinda... fell out I guess. For a while I could only feel emotions to the extremes, like only extreme rage and extreme melancholy, but after all of that subsided... I could feel nothing. Absolutely no feelings would come up to fruition. And if I did ever feel things, it was so temporary that it felt like I was faking it completely. What I'm saying here is Depression basically makes you forget what it is to feel anything.

Something I found out, as the above gif might counteract, is that people definitely do want to hear about your situation. Keeping it all in is totally not good for you. I've been really open about how completely shitty I feel right now and the amount of people who have just offered to talk about things is astounding. Go out and find your people and confess and confide in them, because they care, believe it or not.

With all of that said, antidepressants do work wonders. I mean they don't work like people think, they definitely aren't happy pills that make the world happy and magical once you ingest them. They do put a muzzle on the monster for a little while, but believe me the monster is still out and about. It's just kind of on a leash with antidepressants. At least that's how it is for me. Things aren't easy, by any means, but they're definitely easi-er. And Buzzfeed totally got it on spot with a recent article they published. (http://www.buzzfeed.com/annaborges/no-zombies-here...) I was totally the type of guy who said that I don't want to rely on a pill for happiness. But now my eyes are kind of open.

But I've also learned that, while it is definitely a medical thing, with the chemicals in your brain and whatnot, there's definitely a mentality part to it. I think that you've gotta get yourself to be happy in other ways. I know it's hard, it still honestly is for me, but there is always happiness to be found around you. Someone out there, hell I'll say a lot more than that, cares for you and wants you happy. Believe me. I doubted it too, but if you really need it, when you really need it, there's always gonna be someone there for you.

So to anyone in the same boat, with that monster unleashed and graying everything out, I wish you the best. I can't really say to go on antidepressants, because I'm not a doctor by any means. But all I can say is hang in there, eventually your monster will tire itself out and go back into hibernation.