To the girls with anxiety and depression,

Hi. I’m a survivor of both of these mental illnesses, and I’m here to tell you you will get through this seemingly never ending storm. Whether you’re in the midst of it or finding the rainbow afterwards. I’m here to tell you that you’ll have bad days, days are never ending and feel as though you’re slowly collapsing from the inside and the rest of the world doesn’t even know acknowledge it. But, let me also tell you, there will also be days where you feel like you’re on cloud nine and everything in your life feels completely and totally right. Hold on to those days. Enjoy them.

I want to explain something to you as well. That no matter how much you want to believe the people you love in your life will never let you down, they inevitably will. We live in a fallen world, and the only pure and perfect love we can receive is from our Heavenly Father who is there for us no matter who you are. Because, let me tell you as someone who knows this all too well, there will be times when your mom isn’t there to hold you and tell you everything is going to be okay. Your friends may not completely understand and won’t always be listening when you’re crying for the seventh time that day because your heart is beating out of your chest and wants to take flight without you connected to it. And that boy who kisses your scars and tells you your beautiful? He still won’t be enough for you at the end of the day. Nothing will ever be enough.

You want to be filled up by people who don’t always want to fill you. But, the one person who will always be enough for you and always want to fill you is God. The weight of the world can get heavy when you’re carrying it all on your own, and the Lord tells us to give our burdens, our sorrows, and whatever is making us weak and weary to Him so that we may continue to live our lives and be joyful in Him and the comfort He provides for us. God gives us a heart and a spirit of gladness and of goodness, and my mom has told me over and over that any other feeling of anxiety or dread or depression are not from Him. Those are from the devil, and he is trying to break us. We need to show him we cannot be broken, because we have God who is our eternal and mighty and always strong, even when we aren’t.

Next, accept those horrible, terrible, no good, bad days. They come up, sometimes just for one day, other times for seemingly endless days in a row. There are times when it is acceptable to cry, to not leave your room for the entire day and to just lay in bed and shut the world out. But, there are other times when you need to get up, push through, and face the world. If you have something important that comes up, like a test or project, try your hardest to get it through it as best as you can. But, if your lungs feel like they’re beginning to collapse on top of themselves and your body feels as though it is about to break with your next step, hold off on whatever it is. So take some deep breaths, and if it passes, then try to get through the rest of day. If it doesn’t, don’t beat yourself up. Ask your teachers or professors for a make-up date and they’ll accommodate with you to the best of their abilities. They have your well-being in mind, and they’re not against you in this fight.

So girls, it may seem impossible now, but I promise it gets easier. Living and breathing and simply existing will begin to be less tiresome and you’ll remember how to enjoy the little things in life again. You’ll start to sing in the shower again, you’ll give your mom hugs and learn to love, you’ll go out for long walks with your dog and stare at the sunset, remembering the days you wished nothing more than to stop existing, even for just a moment. And you’ll thank God that you didn’t, because you wouldn’t be here today to see this beautiful sunset right before your very eyes. The glory and the goodness of God is astounding to me, and I forget how much I’m loved by Him sometimes. So don’t keep it bottled up inside and allow the devil to take control of your thoughts. Give it to God, because he’ll always be there when it feels as though the world is against you.

With Love,

The Girl Who Made It Through the Storm.