At a very young age, I always knew something was different. I always acted out with this insane rage, always screaming at the top of my lungs, but seemed so sad when I was by myself. I just knew that this behavior wasn’t right. My family always blamed it on hormones, but I knew that they were wrong. As time grew, my symptoms worsened. They intensified, making me feel more angry and more emotional. This became hard on me growing up because I was already going through a lot in my life. My life basically was a tragic story of lonesome and despair. It was a tale of a lost girl who never had a chance.

The minute I was born, fate decided that my life would be detrimentally screwed up. I never had a chance at “normal” life, whatever that means. Fate took another route in my life by giving me a darkness, called depression. It knew that I would struggle with it, and maybe even knew it would ruin me as a person, but what it didn’t know was that it would make me stronger.

Depression may have ruined my life, but it made me stronger as an individual. It took every good feeling away and replaced it with a bad feeling. It brought me down to the lowest point in my life, and once I was there it took me back up. Depression continuously goes up and down, some days I don’t even know anymore. It brought a constant pain in my life that I couldn’t shake off. The pain had become so unbearable that all I could feel was numbness. It was a feeling I couldn’t escape.

I couldn’t escape the darkness my depression had brought into my life. I had become a souless creature that lived in lonesome despair. I lost all ability to care in the world because of my depression. It took every possible breathe in my life not say “I am done”. All I wanted to do was be done with living, be done with hurting, and be done with my depression. I was tired physically and emotionally, maybe even mentally. I couldn’t even bare to move on with my life, but I knew I had to. My struggle with depression was a constant battle that I began to think I was the loser and depression was the winner. I never thought I could beat my depression, until now.
Even though my depression still haunts me, I have found ways to deal with it. I know that some days will be good and some will be bad, but I have to remind myself that I will get through it and that everything will be ok. The hard part isn’t getting through the depression, but recovering from its effects. Recovering from depression is like recovering from alcoholism or an addiction, it is really hard and there is a possibility of relapse, but eventually it is something that can be achieved. I have worked hard on my recovery, but it will take a long time to fully be “normal” again.

I want people to know that depression shouldn’t go unnoticed because it could really be detrimental to their livelihood. My struggle with depression makes me want to speak out and tell people my story. I want people to be more aware of depression because it is very common and  something that should be talked about more. People with or without depression should know that they are not alone, and they have support. Depression will not hold me down, and others shouldn’t let it either.