Depression is an illness many believe to be everlasting. When I was diagnosed, the first thing I thought was, “I’ll never be happy again”. Once you hear the words “you have depression” from your Psychologist, you suddenly think of all the bad things that can come from this illness. Thoughts of suicide, disliking all your favourite hobbies, not enjoying your friends company, the list never ended in my mind. There was no good thing, I thought, that could come out of this illness. As thoughts of worthlessness started to engrave into my brain, I was constantly overcome with fear, I thought the games in my brain would never end. I finished piles of mental homework from my psychologist and felt like nothing was working, I thought “maybe I’m too broken to heal”. Time passed by, and I looked back in a journal I had written in during the darkest time in my life. I read the words I had written years ago, but they weren’t words anymore, they were lies. So many people speak about the specific point in their lives when they just turned off the pain and there was no more sadness, no more despair. But that’s not how it works for some people, it took me years, it was slow progress. It can be a progress you don’t notice until the day you look back from a different perspective, or it can be continual progress each day, little steps to a better you. I think that people should stop searching for their exact turning point, the exact day when they feel suddenly better. If you live your life searching for something that can not possibly happen in one day, you will be disappointed. Start looking forward for each day, each accomplishment, like every time you leave the house or go on a spontaneous friend date. All these little things, in the end, will add up to help you see your life from a new perspective.
by Zoe Zdunich