Today I can’t get out of bed. I am not refusing to get out of bed, but rather my body is not physically able to accomplish the task. I feel the crushing weight of expectations, I feel all of my potential dissipating into the air, and I hate who I have become. 

“Get up,” I say to myself. 

I roll over and look at the clock, it says 7:12 am, I have to leave for school in 18 minutes.

Depression is suffering. It is a form of self-afflicted torture, with your hand on the whip and your back feeling the explosive burning of the lash when it sails through the air. Depression is not a choice. 

When I am depressed, I am my worst enemy. I kick myself when I am down and I revel in my pain because depression is your mind working against your better interest. You alone know the ins and outs of your brain better than anyone else, and depression uses that knowledge to inflict targetted agony to the areas in which it will hurt the most. Sometimes the worst place you can be is in your own mind. 

But depression is a coward; it strikes when you are most vulnerable. It rears its grotesque head at night when you are alone, in bed with your thoughts racing as you try and quiet the noise and drift into sleep. 

Depression is also cruel, it snuffs hope, derails progress, suffocates joy, poisons the mind and alienates the soul. It is constant death and mourning for the life that you could be living instead of this hollow carcass you are now. 

My depression is cyclical and it never completely goes away. Medicine and therapy can quiet the demons for a while, but eventually, they will sink their teeth into some far recess of my subconscious and regain control of the steering wheel once again. 

But it is familiar and reliable. Depression is like retreating within myrself and going on auto-pilot while I embrace an old friend. Because there is comfort in this toxic relationship; it knows every aspect of my existence, every color of my imagination, and every scar of my past. Depression never leaves my side as my life fractures and implodes around me. It sees me at my very worst and does not abandon me, and so I become codependent on it, unlearning what life is like without this insidious filter. 

The worst part about being depressed is that it is a psychological condition and thereby invisible to the naked eye; there are no rashes, cuts, breaks, burns or any physical manifestation of the internal havoc depression is waging. It is the slow and painful withdrawal from happiness. 

And as a mental health disorder, it is accompanied by enormous cloaks of shame which can prevent asking for help even after you realize that you need it. For years, I struggled under the iron fist of my depression without seeking a diagnosis, medicine, or therapy and everyone in my life was completely ignorant of my suffering. Your best friend could be cutting and burning every day and you are fooled by them masquerading as mentally healthy because they are too ashamed to ask for help. 

But the only thing more exhausting than being depressed is pretending that you’re not. 

It’s 7:16, “Get up,” I reiterate to myself. 

Time is eroding before my eyes and so I close them. Every additional second that I spend in my bed will make the rest of my day harder, as I struggle to move in a frenzied panic to avoid being late to school. But with my eyes closed I can ignore the ticking time bomb, the strewn clothes, the dirty plates, and the unwashed hair for one minute longer. 

My body feels like lead and my thoughts are cowering in my head to avoid being engulfed in the hurricane. When you are depressed days can bleed into weeks, weeks into months, and eventually, the concept of time disappears entirely. There is only before and throughout the depression. There is no foreseeable future worth living for. 

When you are depressed, you are living in a body that prioritizes survival and occupies a mind that wants to die. 

When life becomes so unbearable that all you accomplish in a single day is breathing, you cannot imagine anything better. And so your demons slowly break you down, and as you stand in the aftermath of the devastation, with a thick layer of dust clouding your vision and rubble obscuring the path, you just want the suffering to stop. 

Suicide is waving the white flag. 

At 7:20, my Dad comes racing into my room to get me up; he reaches his arms underneath my torso, he swings my legs to the side of the bed, picks me up, and places me on my feet.

“Get ready,” I say to myself now, as the reality of my immobility washes over me and I am submerged in the anxiety of being late. 

And so the ceaseless cycle begins again: I put on my jeans and brush my teeth, I put my hair in a bun and I lace my shoes, I pack my backpack and I walk down the stairs. My day has just begun, and already I have stood on the front line and taken enemy fire. 

Nothing about this existence is worthwhile. The only thing motivating you to keep going is the distant hope of improvement. But the sad reality is that there is no guarantee of recovery. You may never get better, but you will never know if you do not try. 

I hope with every fiber of my being that my days will someday be devoid of this monster. I am exhausted from the effort of fighting it. But because I have taken the steps to receive the help I need, I am no longer fighting it alone. 

My family and friends are the backbones of my existence and it is only through their support that I have survived into adulthood. So on days like these, when I am deafened by my depression and I writhe in its shadow, my support system is able to pick up the slack and maintain some semblance of normality so my life is not repeatedly and completely derailed. 

This is depression. It is not cute, funny, or easy. It is not laziness or sadness, and it is not a choice. Depression is horrible. It is the hardest thing I have ever had to go through. Depression is the hardest thing my family has ever had to go through because it does not just affect the mentally ill person. My parents have had to helplessly watch their child suffer, fear for their child’s safety and advocate for their child’s well-being in a world that does not respect depression as a serious health condition like diabetes or cancer. 

If you or anyone you know is struggling with mental illnesses like depression please know that this is temporary. Every day, our world offers more and more resources to help those in need and so please reach out to someone for help. You are not in this alone. 

I may never be free from my depression, but I have taken up arms and contended with it for much longer than I ever thought I could. You can do it too. 

The National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline can be reached at 988 by text or call, and it offers free, confidential, 24-hour support and guidance to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress. 

The Ohio CareLine offers free confidential emotional support from behavioral health professionals 24 hours a day and can facilitate connection to local providers. The CareLine can be reached by calling 1-800-720-9616. 

Please call 911 in life-threatening circumstances. 

Other helplines: 

• Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM): Visit www.thecalmzone.net
• Crisis Text Line: Visit www.crisistextline.org/  or Text “START” to 741-741
• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Visit www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline: call 1-800-622-4357
• Ohio Mental Health Information and Referral Line: 1-877-275-6364
• Nationwide Children’s Hospital Mental/Behavioral Health Services: Visit https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/specialties/behavioral-health/crisis-services