Everybody thought I was fine, I still smiled, I seemed like myself so no one questioned me. I wasn't fine though, I was dying inside and no one knew it. Feeling worthless is a feeling that I wish upon no one, people deserve to be happy. Depression can be described by anyone, someone may say it is “severe despondency and dejection, accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy,” according to the dictionary. It can be described very scientifically by doctors or therapists, although only a person who has dealt with depression can honestly describe it with feeling. There is the saying “I can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” but with depression you enter the same tunnel and see a small light at the end, but no matter how far you walk, it never gets closer. Depression is not easy, you suffer and never know when that suffering will end or if it ever will, but you have to stay strong and believe in yourself, because during depression you are your own worst enemy.

I had been going to my doctor frequently, in order to get warts removed, so about every two weeks I went to go see her. Even my doctor didn't notice anything wrong with me, to her I was the same happy teenager that she was used to. One day though, I went for my appointment and I started talking to her about basketball, since she asked how it was going. I started crying. I told her how my coach made me feel like I wasn't capable of doing anything and how the whole season I was miserable. I thought that I was feeling normal, I didn't think of myself as a person who would become depressed. “How long have you been having these sad feelings?” my doctor asked. I told her that I had been feeling sad for the past six months. I think it shocked her slightly, because I seemed so fine and happy one day and then the next I just broke down crying in the doctors office. She told me that some people can hide their depression really well and pretend to be happy so well, that it seems like they really are. I was pretending to be happy for everyone, I put a smile on my face even though it was the last thing I wanted to do. I pretended to be happy for so long, that it became normal and I honestly forgot what being truly happy felt like.

My whole life I have never been a supremely confident person, mostly because of how shy I was. When I was little I would cry if someone called me pretty or beautiful, I felt like I didn't deserve the compliment. Even now I don't believe I am beautiful, no matter how much people compliment me or try to convince me I am; everyone can see it, except for me. It is something I need to work on, but definitely it is a small struggle compared to what I had to deal with.

When I was first diagnosed with depression, it was hard, I'm not going to lie, it was very difficult. I cried myself to sleep on most nights, I tried to forget everything bad in my life. I don't know when it was, but at one point I started feeling better, not normal, but better. I tried to make more friends and be more outgoing. I rid myself of anyone in my life who put me down, I broke up with my ex boyfriend, because I knew I deserved better. It may sound cliché, but the minute after I broke up with him, stopped talking to him and deleted his number, I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I had the power to stand up to someone and express what I felt. You may think that I would have cried, because I broke up with someone for the first time, but I didn't, instead I smiled the biggest I had in months. I was strong, I was powerful, I stood up for myself and never let up, after going through the hardest time of my life, I made a decision to better my life.

I can smile again and really mean it, it is not artificial anymore. I smile more than cry now, and being silly is something I do a lot. A lot of the summer I spent with my best friend and we still laugh about it, we had crazy, dorky, teenage girl moments. I sing along with songs again, even though 808's and auto-tune couldn't even make me sound as good as T-Pain and he sounds like he is singing through a fan. My boyfriend and I play football together, even though every time he catches me and tackle-hugs me, so I end up laughing.

Things are better now, it was a long walk, but I finally reached the end of the tunnel and can see the light again.

“There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.”
Laurell K. Hamilton