So many stigmas, and so many opinions. Not enough support.
If you were to ask the people closest to me, "How would you describe her?" they would answer with, "Happy," "The weirdest person I know," "Lives life to the fullest," "Will make herself look like a fool to make others laugh."
No one would say, "struggles with depression and thinks about suicide."
No one.
If I were to describe myself, I would probably say the same thing – especially being the weirdest person I know. But the thing that comes to mind first? Depressed. Severely.
No one sees the girl who lays in bed and cries herself to sleep or lets the shower run ten minutes before getting in it to cry behind the falling water, only to cry more when I finally get in. No one sees the one who wakes up in the morning to go to her dream job, struggle to get up, struggle to find a reason why I woke up again.
"Don't be sad" "You have nothing to be sad about!" "Brush it off" "Are you taking your medicine?"
What do you have to be depressed about?
If I knew, don't you think I'd change it? Do you think I like to live with a lump in my chest every single day? Do you think I like to shut down when I'm around a lot of people and have to leave to go compose myself? Don't you think I'd fix it? I take the medicine, I spend time with people who make me happiest, I exercise when I can.
"Depression is just being sad when something goes wrong, life isn't fair. Real depression isn't being depressed when something goes wrong, it's when everything is going right."
It is a massive issue. But no one speaks about it. Why?
Every thirty seconds, someone in the world takes their own life, because of depression. Do you think anyone believed them? Took them seriously? Most likely not, because they had nothing to be sad about.
I've thought about it and think about it every day. But I'm one of the lucky ones who get to sit here and continue fighting a battle within my own self, I get to continue fighting my own brain to get through every day.
That's the sickness. It is a sickness.
You're sick, you're not weak. We're not weak.
But the stigma inside of others, that make people like me, feel shame, feel crazy, feel like we're fighting something that isn't real.
But let me tell you one thing. I'm here, fighting my own battle — I'll help you fight yours, too. Because there's no stigma inside of me toward you, when you're battling a sickness that others don't believe in just because they can't see it.
We're people. Take away the taboos. Start talking about this, because the only way we are going to beat a problem that people are facing on their own is by standing together.
