I am the picture of happiness to everyone who deeply knows me. I’m wildly outgoing, articulate and comfortable. I’m ambitious, somewhat confident and extremely high-achieving. I connect with others quite easily and have a wide circle of strong interpersonal relationships with people who love me openly and without relent. I’m self-sufficient and brave, generous and thoughtful. I’m well-read, well-spoken and well-traveled. But I’m not well, at least not always, or even most of the time. You don’t see the scars, on my heart or my skin, the ones I cover with long sleeves and a loud laugh.
You don’t see me sitting down in the shower, with scolding water pouring over me as I heave and throb in pain from a brokenness I can’t control or explain, punishing myself for the frailty of my own brain.
You don’t see the days I can’t get out of bed or even open up the windows to look at the sunlight. Because everything hurts, everything takes from me, and I feel like I don’t have any more to give.
You don’t see the way mental illness has ripped me away from the people I’ve loved. How I’ve had to live with the overwhelming shame of the things I’ve done when I’m in an episode, the words I didn’t mean, decisions I’d never make, and person that wasn’t me, that the people I love had to meet.
You don’t see me squeeze my eyes shut every time I think about how devastating and soul-crushing it has been to show who I really am, only to be renounced and abandoned.
You don’t see me do everything in my power to recover from a depressive episode; all the calls to loved ones, long runs, cups of coffee, motivational playlists and journals. Every trick, article, book, podcast and exercise that I’ve tried. But there is no quick fix, and that is something that a person with depression knows well.
Because you also don’t see how courageous and resilient a person has to be to live with a disease they know they’ll never fix, cure or silence in its totality, and yet still wake up every day deciding to live despite it.
It takes an unbelievable amount of endurance to repeatedly struggle with depression, to rise and fall, to break and mend, to remiss and recover, over and over, but keep going.
I may not be ok now but eventually.