So, I'm sick. I've got an illness. A disorder. A disability. It's invisible, but it's there. I've spent a long time being ashamed of it, doubting it, and hating it, but at the end of the day, it is always with me.
Depression is a word that gets used in a lot of different ways in a lot of different contexts. The economy, for example, has the Great one. A plot of land can have a depression, and a button can be depressed. But I just get the one word, the one way, with the one context. I get Major Depressive Disorder. My definition is the "sick" one.
I knew I was depressed as early as 11 or 12. Everyone thought I was just shy but I knew there was something wrong with me, and that if I interacted with other people, they would know too. Whatever it was it didn't matter. I just knew that I was different — bad different. I didn't realize until later that the feeling of "wrongness" was just the beginnings of an intense self-loathing that would take me years to start working through. To me, these feelings were not only normal, but they were my fault.
I've come a long way since feeling like that. I was formally diagnosed at about 12 and at first nothing changed. I was depressed. So what? I knew that. I wasn't doing anything to change it. I was so deeply entrenched in my own misery that recovery was a hazy abstract thought that I couldn't imagine as reality.
Part of what depression does is it keeps you very short-sighted. At 12, I couldn't imagine being a high school freshman or senior. I couldn't envision my eighteenth birthday, or my high school graduation, or my first day of college. All of these things felt out of reach to me. I suppose some part of me was convinced that I wasn't going to live that long. At the very least, all of those milestones that I should have been looking forward to felt meaningless.
The tricky thing about mental illnesses is that they often don't feel like an illness. We grow up believing that depression and other mood disorders are states of mind. That we just need a little more fresh air, a change of scenery, some meditation, because everyone feels depressed sometimes and we just need to think happier thoughts. So when my thoughts turned dark for weeks and months and years at a time, I didn't feel sick. I felt like a failure. I felt like I just wasn't trying hard enough. And because my very real illness is invisible, I felt like maybe it didn't matter anyways.
But depression is real, and it is serious, and it is not just a state of mind. It is a part of my mind. My brain quite literally works differently than the brain of a non-depressed person, and that does matter. My depression isn't something to be ashamed of or to doubt. It's something that I fight every day. It's something I will be constantly fighting for the rest of my life, and I intend to win.
Just because you can't see a person's illness, it doesn't mean it isn't there. It doesn't make it less real. Or less painful. And I don't want sympathy — although I'd prefer that to the dismissal I usually get. I've learned so much from having this illness.
I've learned how to take care of myself, and what that really means. It's not all bath bombs and books and taking four-hour naps in the middle of the day. It doing what needs to be done without using my illness as an excuse. Whether that's finishing difficult homework, waking up at 8 A.M. for a meeting with a counselor, or just cleaning my room, I feel better knowing what needs to be done is done.
I've learned to feel my worst emotions instead of ignoring them. I've learned that it's okay to forget my responsibilities every once in a while. I've learned that being lonely is not the same as being alone, and that I will not always be both. I've learned to put myself first. I've learned that what I have is not who I am.
Things have gotten better for me, and they will continue to do so.
Depression is awful. I don't think anyone should ever have to go through it, but according to the World Health Organization, 350 million people worldwide suffer from depression. It's one of the leading causes of disability. It's not something that we should be silent about.
I'm unashamed of my invisible illness. I hope you are, too.