It’s scary feeling like you’re never going to be happy again. Any spark and any enjoyment you once had is just gone one day. You just wake up and realize you feel different. And when you realize it, you scramble to find it again, something to stimulate you, or any feeling at all.

Depression can make small things big, like lighthearted comment leaving a huge emotional impact, secretly confirming a secret insecurity. Depression can also make big things small, like brushing aside dark thoughts, your brain telling you “You know, they really wouldn’t miss you. You annoy them anyways. If you can’t make yourself happy, why don’t you just do everyone else a favor?”

You lie awake at night, thinking about all the wrongs you may have done unto others, thinking about how you could’ve tried harder to keep everyone happy with you, they all hate you, probably. “You really aren’t worth it, you deserve to be miserable,” is all you can tell youself. “You’ll never be happy again.”

“You’re just being too sensitive. You’re too weak, not strong enough to stay here anymore,” you tell yourself over and over, when your mind should be on other things.

You can’t stop thinking, about what you don’t like about yourself, about how much easier it would be to end it, how grateful everyone would be to you.

You think you’re a waste of space and time, and no, this isn’t the occasional feeling you get when you’re down. This stays for weeks and weeks and that turns into months.

And you’re always, ALWAYS thinking. You can’t stop. Not even to sleep or go to a movie with friends.

Sometimes you take it out on yourself, finding anything that burns or cuts you on the outside, taking it to your skin, over and over, until you’re numb. Anything to give you any form of sensation or release. It becomes hard to feel and be affected by things.

You don’t want to go out anymore. You’re a joke to everyone. Even pain inflicted upon yourself doesn’t let you feel anything.

You get to a point where you don’t want to move. You can’t cry anymore. You’ve given up, you’re so disappointed in yourself. Everybody was always tells you to get over it, but you can’t.

To yourself, you’re broken, a freak. Every negative comment and thought has been retained and repeated back, amplified. Everything they say about you must be based in truth, right? You agree with them, anything they say to you.

You’re just, uncomfortable, being yourself, feeling how you’re feeling. You feel crazy. You cry out of the frustration just a normal day give you. You’re just so frustrated that you just can’t be happy. You can’t stand yourself. You have no right to be this unhappy.

But the reality of it is, you physically can’t help it.

Depression is a disease, not an emotion. Many people don’t realize its severity until its too late, and even then, many are left with questions.

A person is not selfish for being affected by depression, or losing to it. To take your own life takes a lot of thought about everyone in your life, and is not selfish. It isn’t selfish to reach out either, everybody deserves help.

Depression, despite common belief, is not just being sad, or having a bad day. It is based in the chemistry of the brain, physically hindering a person’s happiness.

Telling someone “it’s all in your head” isn’t going to make it any better or any easier, it won’t magically cure a person if all you say is “cheer up.”

If somebody tells you they’re feeling anything even close to this, GET THEM HELP.

If you feel anything similar to this, GET HELP.

It can be helped, no matter how terrible you feel, you can hang on a little longer.

You deserve to feel happy again, and just as you began to feel depressed, you can begin to recover as well.

You’re stronger than you think you are, you can be helped.