What do you tell your friends when you're too sad to go out?

Depression is a disease- a sickness that doesn't go away with just chicken noodle soup. When the world is spinning and I feel like I can't get back on my feet, I cannot tell people how I feel.

Sadness isn't a feeling. It is a state. A constant mind-numbing state that drapes over me like a scarf that is too big- engulfing me with useless thoughts from the past. Remnants and echoes of "why are you here" and "you aren't worth it" hang heavily around my neck, around my head, in my mouth and under my skin. Sadness feels like I am sitting at the bottom of the pool, watching the world go by in slow motion. You know that feeling when you're underwater? When everything is muted, rippled, and stuck in time? Watching people wonder why I am just sitting and not swimming. Hearing people yell my name in frustration and tell me to "just swim." How can I just swim when I'm stuck in a ripple?

Those days it's hard for me to breathe. Those days I want to stay in bed all day and stare blankly at the ceiling in a dimly lit room. Yes, I would rather be wrapped around in blankets, than go out to parties because these blankets did not lie to me. These blankets did not leave me. And these blankets did not touch me without my permission.

The ruffles of these blankets have wiped away my tears, pushed away my fears in the dark, and hugged me until I fell asleep. The tears in the corner of these blankets have seen the world hurt me, have seen me hurt myself, and have felt me tugging and ripping at its seams like they were my veins.

I want it to stop. I want this feeling of constant nothingness to go away. I want to stop breathing because, with every heave of my chest, I am just breathing in more water.

Those days it is so hard for me to breathe that I just want to stop breathing. I want it all to stop. Those days are the worst. Because no one ever gets it. "You were fine yesterday," someone will mutter, and "It's all in your head," someone will state, with that matter-of-factually obnoxiousness that I have learned to ignore since the first day.

Those days I want to run and run and run away from the noise inside my head, from thoughts that trail after me like my shadow. I don't want to see. I don't want to hear. I only want to feel the thumps of my beating heart under my skin reminding me that I am alive.

The only thing depression taught me was this: people will say they love you and they support you and that they understand. They don't. I realize that when I talk too much about my depression, people get uncomfortable. They try to butter me up with awkward 'don't you feel so much better today's as if they can try to make me whole again. As if I'm something broken they think they can fix. But I'm not.

I am not broken. I am a person. I think, I feel, I am normal. Just a normal girl with perhaps too many feelings, too many thoughts- but a normal girl, nonetheless. Depression is a part of me that I've come to accept. Some days it's easier to manage than others. Some days, my friends act like lifeboats and bring me above the surface. I can see the sun again. I can breathe again. Everything is fine again. But there will always be those dark, high tides that I cannot escape. I will plunge underwater and I will be pulled deep down again. But I will always find my way back to the lifeboats. I will always find my way to the surface.

To everyone: Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there. And just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean I don't feel it.

Think before you say something. Your words might be the last thing someone hears.