Break The Silence.

Beneath my smile there is struggle.

Beneath my light there is darkness.

Beneath my big personality there is pain.

I fear myself. 

Depression is not the chicken pox. You don't beat it once and it's gone forever--it's the roommate you can't kick out. The voice you can't ignore. The feelings you can't escape.

Depression is the one flaw in love.

It should not be confused with sadness or grief--both are completely human emotions that will happen to us all.

Depression is utterly disabling. 

It is insomnia every night yet feeling exhausted, uninterested, and hopeless by day.

You're nothing. You'll never be anything. You're a burden. NO ONE cares about you. You're worthless. You're trash. End it, already.

The scary part? The scary part is that you become numb to it. It becomes normal. You no longer fear the suffering inside of yourself, but you fear the stigma. You hold it in. You hide it. 

The stigma in our society around depression is very real. Don't believe me? Try calling into work depressed. Try telling your professor you didn't do your essay because you didn't have the mental energy to get up out of bed and do it.

Scratch that--if you want to have a chance at not failing you will have to simply call in sick. Say you broke your arm. Say you were home with a fever. Say anything that points to physical pain rather than mental pain.

We're so accepting of any body part breaking down--except for our brain. That's ignorance.

I don't know what the solution is. But I think it has to start with the silence being broken.

My hurt has forced me to have hope. It has forced me to have ridiculous amounts of faith. In myself, in others, that it will get better...

The world I want to leave in is one where embracing my light doesn't mean ignoring my dark. It's one where we're measured in how we overcome our adversities. NOT how we avoid them.

True strength does not mean never showing weakness. It's the opposite.

Stop the ignorance. The intolerance, the silence, the taboos, the stigmas. 

The only way to beat a problem that people battle alone is to stand strong together. 

Start talking.