This article is late. You don’t know it, but I'm already more than four hours past the deadline. For this, I am sorry. Not to you, my reader, but to those who have to deal with my chronic procrastinating. I would like to explain something though -- there’s so much more to this than just not doing something that you have a responsibility to do. Even now, as I'm staring at my screen, watching my fingers form words, there’s something supremely difficult in forcing myself to write. It’s like trying to make an untrained puppy beg and then play dead; so much effort that you begin to wonder just why you're doing it, and if it’s worth the effort.

I should clarify. That’s not me wondering if writing this article is worth the effort. That’s me giving voice to the constant background noise in my head. “Is it worth it? Why are you even bothering?” It’s strange how quickly you can become accustomed to waiting until the last minute (or past it), justifying it to yourself because, really, what’s an hour when you can’t bring yourself to get out of bed some days? What’s having someone be disappointed in your tardiness when you’re relatively certain that you’d disappoint them in some other way, all the same? In short, what’s the point?

Good question, proverbial reader. The point is that for some people, myself included, mustering the energy to do even the simplest tasks is hard. Basic things like homework become insurmountable obstacles that were devised by the devil to make sure you fail. Getting out of bed in the morning and doing something as easy as putting on a tee shirt and a pair of jeans might be the hardest thing you do all day. Talking to others, even close friends and loved ones, might very well be as difficult as trying to speak a foreign language with someone who has no desire to talk to you in the first place. And writing an essay, even one that might be extremely important to a class, is borderline impossible.

For fear of rambling on, what I'm getting at is that for some people, the most mundane task could be soul-crushingly difficult. For me, something as simple as writing an article that most people won’t read, even about something as simple as a new album or a political debate, is incredibly hard. Not because I'm lazy, and not because I don’t know what to write. I have plenty of ideas, and all of them could make a wonderful article that I’d post on Facebook. I could write about Californian rap-punk band Zebrahead’s new album, "Walk the Plank." I could write about the fantastic performance that Modern Baseball and Bleachers put on at TCNJ’s Fall Concert, sponsored by CUB. I could write about the fact that this month, the twentieth trans woman of color was murdered this year, and the plethora of issues that exposes. I could write about all of that, but the actual execution – the putting the pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, feels impossible sometimes.

So instead, I'm writing this. I'm writing a short article that looks more to me like an excuse than an article where I beat around the issue and don’t say what needs to be said. I have written four paragraphs now, and for fear of the tremendous stigma that surrounds this admission, have yet to say it. Someone I love, out of fear for my future job prospects, cautioned me against writing this, because the stigma around mental illness is so great. And the fact that one sentence could jeopardize my future career, could jeopardize my dream of going to law school and becoming a lawyer, is terrifying. And yet, the feeling of loneliness in this ordeal is far, far worse. So for everyone who feels alone, who sometimes lies awake hating themselves because they can’t bring themselves to read a simple chapter in a relatively easy book, or is panicking right now over suffering grades caused by anxiety or depression, remember this: you are not alone. I understand what you're going through, and I get exactly how hard it is. I have suffered from depression for going on four years now, and sometimes I feel worse than I did before I first sought treatment. But there are days too when four years feels like forever, and I marvel at the fact that I spent the previous day wanting to curl up in my bed and hide from the world.

I hope that you, reader, have no idea what I'm talking about. I hope that you read this and cannot relate in the way that I know many of you will. But in the past three years, three TCNJ students have committed suicide. Three young people, no older than you or me, took a look around and decided that they felt so alone and so hurt, that there was nothing left for them. So I write this hoping that you will know that you are not alone. I write this hoping that you know that you will never be alone. And on the days when the simplest task seems impossible, breathe. Reach out to someone. Reach out to a professor, a friend, a parent, anyone who will remind you that you don’t have to suffer in silence. I wish I could end this on a happy note, and say that it gets better, but I can’t. I don’t know that it gets better. But I do know that you'll never know if you don’t stick around to find out.