You feel the symptoms starting to show. First, it’s your sleep, maybe it’s endless insomnia, maybe you take long naps to “recharge” only for you to feel more exhausted than before. 

Then, it’s your appetite. Maybe you stop eating altogether because you feel you don’t deserve nourishment. Maybe you’re so lost within yourself that eating just isn’t a priority anymore. Suddenly, your clothes are looser, your rings are too big for your fingers, and you look more sickly than ever. You don’t want to look at yourself in the mirror. You don’t want to be perceived. You feel disorderly and moody, on edge, and frightened. You don’t even like yourself, you say. You question if anyone really does. The locust swarm of thoughts gets worse and worse. You’re so lost in it that you just keep dismantling every part of you. You barely feel like you. 

It may take a while to attach a name to it: depression. You have a mood disorder that conquers your psyche like a tyrant. For some of us, this disorder runs in the family. Others of us experienced trauma which manifested into this lamentable disorder. Whatever the case, it’s unshakable. You feel this sunless abyss expand within you, growing insurmountable day by day. It’s easy to say to a depressed person: “You’re not alone,” but many of us can’t help but feel like are. We can’t help but feel like everyone else has a script on how to be happy and we, alone, are stuck doing aimless improv. 

What you’ve gone through already just isn’t enough. You haven’t suffered enough just as you haven’t done enough. It is never enough, right? But, that's the thing: depression isn't linear.  

If that isn’t enough, here come the naysayers to try and “reason” with what you’re dealing with. Maybe it’s all in your head and you just need to get a breath of fresh air. Maybe your mom will tell you that she didn’t raise you to be this way so how could you possibly have a mood disorder? Yet, these “reasons” do nothing but make the depressed person feel worse as if their mind doesn’t already constantly feed them with an endless cycle of guilt and doubt.

This is your disorder, though. It isn’t something to be ashamed of. You shouldn’t feel guilty for something you didn’t choose. No one willingly chooses to have depression, it just spawns during our life’s journey and tags along for the ride. It is a parasite that attaches itself to a vulnerable host, trying to suck the life force out of it. But, we learn to live with the parasite. 

Therapy is important to help combat depression but it’s important to note that it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. For many of us, we don’t just go to therapy and suddenly the depression is cured as if it never happened. We may go to therapy, improve, get out of therapy, and find ourselves in a bad mental health space that we may need it again. Medication is the same idea. We may be placed on a medication that works for a time but suddenly, it may not work anymore and that’s okay. Progress in dealing with a mental illness is not linear. Depression itself is not linear. It manifests in different ways for different people and what works for one depressed person may not work for another. 

It’s fruitless to try “curing” depression; learning to live with it is much more realistic. Simply living with it sounds easier said than done but acknowledging your disorder and trying to work your way around it can make the healing process much more rewarding. Yes, a depressed person might have to work twice as hard to get to a fulfilled place in their life that isn’t tainted by their depression but it’s not impossible. Yes, it’s not optimal to have a disorder hindering you from getting the most out of life but fighting against it or doing something as simple as willfully getting up in the morning helps you work around it. 

With mental illness, we have to find new solutions. We have to find a detour because our main road has unfortunately been blocked. But, detours aren’t necessarily bad. It may take longer to reach our desired destination, but we still hope we’ll get there. Even with a mental illness like depression, even when it seems you’re losing, you’re not. You’re still on track. More importantly, you’re still okay. 

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