Depression is not a made up thing, and it's not a mindset that you can just snap out of, it's a serious health problem. For some, like me it is a matter of life and death. When people say it’s just a phase it drives me crazy. If it’s just a phase, then why has it lasted 3 years? October 20th 2015 is my 5 months clean from self harm, and honestly, I didn’t think I was going to make it 5 months. In June this past year I was sitting there, just thinking, and I realized that self harm is ruining me. It made me lose close friends, it ended my best relationships because no one wanted to see me hurt myself. People don’t get how someone can actually hurt themselves on purpose. Neither could I until I started doing it. I used to think like most everyone else “Why would you, How could you even do that?” They say don’t get better for others, get better for yourself, but what they don’t know is how hard it is to do it for yourself.

The last time I cut I was sitting on my bedroom floor crying my eyes out. My girlfriend at the time, who I was and still am madly in love with, just broke up with me. I didn’t know what to do, I lost the love of my life. I felt as if there was nothing left to live for so I went to my last resort, cutting. Day after day things seemed harder and harder. I just wanted my baby girl back. I didn’t give up. Her and I still talked everyday, I told her I love her everyday. I know it sounds crazy that I’m in love with her, but I know what I feel for her. I know we might not last but for now we are good. Having her makes me want to get better, we help each other with not cutting and trying to think happy thoughts, like our future together.
    

A side affect of depression is low self esteem, and I personally have incredibly low self esteem. I passionately hate myself, how I look, how I act, how I talk, everything about me. For some people that may seem hard to understand, they might ask “How can you hate yourself, that isn’t right.” or say “You have to like yourself, snap out of it.” It’s not that easy, most people have things that they don’t like about themselves but they can’t understand how someone can hate every part of themselves. So many people say to me “I just want you to be happy, why can’t I make you happy?” I understand that people want to help but there’s not much people can do. Most of the time asking those questions makes me more upset because I want them to make me happy but it doesn’t happen.
    

I realized that I do have to get better for myself, and although I have yet to learn how to do that, I will still try my hardest to think positive and be happy. Because of what I have been through, I am a stronger person today, and know that the friends I have really care about me. Others are not so sensitive to topics like this. People joke about suicide, they say “I will cut you” or “I would rather slit my wrists than do that”. They don’t understand it is triggering and it hurts. Just the word suicide brings up so much. When I hear it, I almost start crying because it brings me back to reality which I try my hardest to escape. When things trigger me I break down, it reminds me of the feeling of self harm and makes me want to take on the addiction again. But what I realized is that I have to understand that not everybody gets how certain words can affect people. So I decided I have to share about what people go through so people have more awareness to how sensitive people are to some topics. That’s why I will tell anyone about anything I know and have been through with depression and hard times so others don’t get hurt or triggered like I do all the time. Today I have the love of my life back and she makes me want to get better for me, for our future today, I am still clean from cutting and am hoping I will never give into the horrendous addiction. Sometimes you just need that someone to make you want to stay alive and makes you see you have a marvelous future with them.