It’s like a disease. It eats away at you from the inside out. It’s like a maggot that burrows into the deepest parts of your brain. It ruins everything; friendships, relationships, your appetite, your view on the world around you, everyone around you, your self worth.. You get up in the morning and immediately hate yourself because you woke up this time. You put on this jumpsuit every single day of the person that everyone thinks you are, but that's not really what you look like. You paint this smile every morning on your blank canvas of a face, but that's not really what you look like. It doesn't matter what you do, nothing helps. Every day ends the same with you shedding the skin you wore for that day and returning to your familiar state of numbness. You mistake the simplest actions as the world turning against you. An innocent glance in your direction turns into an ugly and judgemental stare. A compliment on how your hair looked that day turns into a comment of insincerity and disgust. You constantly bully yourself with all these thoughts of how you’ll never be the perfect person. You know such a thing doesn’t exist, but you’re certain that you’ll never even come close: and that’s one of the things that hurts the most. I’ve watched you struggle for about three years. I’ve seen you see four different therapists, and change meds three times because they would either not work, or include you in the unlucky percent of people who got worse because of that medication. I’ve seen you hurt yourself in ways that you wouldn’t have ever thought of doing in a million years. There was always that thought, “People out there have it so much worse than me, what am I complaining for?” But everyone is justified to feel a certain way. A problem, big or small, is still a problem. That doesn’t make yours less significant than anyone else’s. You have a right to feel this way. It’s okay. It hurts to have watched you talk to someone new over and over again about your experiences and telling them your story, because even though it’s their job to help you and they want to help you, you’ve convinced yourself that they don't even want to be there. You stopped meds because yeah, you didn’t feel sad anymore, but you just felt numb to the world around you. It wasn’t right. You forced yourself to mature so fast just to deal with illness that no one else around you understood. You’d come home everyday and sleep for five hours, wake up and shower, then go back to sleep. Not even eating at school or eating dinner. You just wanted to sleep. It was your escape from everything. You lost interest in things that you would completely submerge yourself in, like drawing and reading. Oh, how you loved to draw and read. Now your books and notebooks sit there collecting dust. Everything, all of this, just built up and built up. You wanted to put an end to it, but you knew you didn’t have the guts to go through with anything. So night after night, you would stay up tormenting yourself because you were such a coward, and can’t even do this one thing. You lost all hope. No one understood. You wanted to drop out. You thought you would be like that forever, and it scared the hell out of you. Then eventually, something clicked. You didn’t really know what happened, things just slowly started changing over those three years. Your brother was helping you with his own version of exposure therapy by always going out on walks and you didn’t even realize it. Your friend helped you to remember to look at a certain object or person when presenting, so you wouldn’t have a panic attack. You were getting better and didn’t even notice.  Things were starting to look up. You were taking chances in and out of school, getting better grades, started going out more and hanging out with people. You were learning to cut out the negative vibes and surround yourself with more positive ones. You want to know how I know all this? Well, this is me. I had depression and anxiety from seventh grade to the end of freshman year. It was the lowest I’ve ever been in my life. Looking back at it now five years later, I realize that it was the the most impactful learning experience I’ve gone through. What people need to realize is that depression and anxiety don’t come with an on and off switch. A mental illness is something that takes time to recover from, and the time span varies from person to person. You can’t forcibly push someone to get better, you have to let them get better on their own time. Over the years I’ve learned the importance of having an outlet. Find a way to unwind after every day. If you’re upset, talk to someone. I’m sure there's someone out there who will listen. Watch your favorite movie while curled up in some blankets. Hang out with someone. Write in a journal. Or just blast out some music and have a mini concert in the confines of your room while singing into your hairbrush microphone. Do what makes you happy. I know it’s hard to resist the urge to just remain as you are, but the worst thing you can do is do nothing. To get better, you have to want to get better. At the end of the day, you’re the only one who can help yourself. I’d be lying if I said sometimes I didn’t slip into old habits where I’d accept a sad feeling and just sleep it off, or react in anger and annoyance, taking it out on people who didn’t deserve it. Old habits die hard, as the old saying goes. I know I’m not perfect. But I’m me. I strive to be the best me that I can be and I hope you do too.