We have heard this played out story so much at this point. “Oh my gosh you have depression too?” “Everyone has that now, it’s like the new trend”. Even though mental illnesses are watered down by the public and tossed to the side, I’m not going to let that stop me from talking about things depression has put me through in my life. On a daily basis it takes so much energy to get myself out of bed that many people don’t use throughout the day. My day is filled with foolishness that I can never seem to overcome. My thoughts are always overwhelming and jumbled. My days are the same yet I somehow continue to feel worse instead of being immune to my daily struggles. I want that to show in my writing instead of faking who I am and how I feel.  So I guess I’ll just take you through my day before it begins.

It’s 5:30 and the ukulele in Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” is playing through my phone telling me it’s time to be depressed. Consciousness plays apart in my sadness because you just never know what’s going to happen during the day. Maybe I’ll find the love of my life at wawa or i’ll fail all my classes and fall down two flights of stairs. Whatever Jesus decides he wants to watch I guess. I open my eyes and the first thing that comes into my mind is… nothing. I have already fallen back asleep because I don’t believe I should be up before God is and he’s definitely not up at 5:30. 6:15 comes and my eyes are open again and now my first thought is, “why do bad things happen to good people?”. I like to think I’m a pretty good person. I go to church, help people out, give people rides, do charity work, so why am i forced to wake up before the sun just to get an education? After I get over the fact that I’m up at the crack of dawn, I start to sike myself out. “This day is going to be awful. I’m gonna go into class and I’m not going to understand anything. The teachers are going to think i’m stupid; which would be correct, and then my mom is going to hate me because I will never be successful in life”.

All of these thoughts are happening before 6:16 so can you imagine what my thoughts are from 7:30am to 2:30pm. I get dressed and prepare myself for the day telling myself I’m a failure because school is a place I don’t need to be. My days are filled with fakeness. Feeling sad all the time sucks but having to fake happiness makes you rot on the inside. Many people don’t know I have a mental illness because I’m always “laughing” and I’m just so “friendly” but they don’t understand that I do all of these things just so I don’t make others feel uncomfortable. I live this lie in school that I’m so confident and everything's A-Okay but I find myself losing energy every minute because i don’t want to fake anymore. I tell myself, “If they are your true friends it won’t matter if you talk about the troubles you go through because the real friends will be there for you and won’t think you're faking it for attention”. I say this many times throughout the day but, I can never gain enough confidence to just say “F everyone”. I care way too much about what people think of me and I just accept how people treat me.

The worst part about school besides the coming to school part is, disappointing teachers. I tend to make friends with my teachers rather than people my age. Even though I have good relationships with teachers, I’m a bad student. Since the teachers are so nice to me, I feel like I owe them to at least be a good student and get good grades because they know what I’m capable of. But for some reason I can’t do it. One good thing about me is my ability to befriend anyone, so making good impressions are important to me because I want people to like me. Therefore, when i feel like i’m disappointing someone, it breaks my soul. “Why are you so stupid? It’s not that hard to do your work. That’s why no one will ever take you seriously”. I have the personality but my friends have the smarts. So when i turn in bad work or I give up in school, the teacher “sees it coming” and they don’t expect much from me. At some point it helps because I don’t have to worry about fulfilling expectations but sometimes it would be nice if a teacher believed in me and actually pushed me because they know I can do the work. Whenever there’s a conversation with me, my friends, and a teacher, it usually goes along the lines of “haha you guys are great students! Sam,you’re an amazing writer. Leslie, your artistic abilities are phenomenal, and… you’re different, your time will come I promise”. I didn’t know it bothered me until last year when I would ask myself “What’s wrong with you? There is no depth to your life besides being funny and the lazy person in smart people classes”.

After my exhausting day of bullying myself, I go home to let myself bath in my sadness. People say “just shake it off. it’s not that serious. just change your mood” but if only they knew how it works. Depression is like being crucified mentally. You’re helpless and weak but situations just continue to try and hurt you. Yet you have to figure out a way to survive for just a couple more minutes. After crying or looking at my white ceiling, the only question in my head is “Will I ever get better? Is this my life now?” and with that question in my head, I go to sleep. Dreams help me get to a place where I don’t have to worry about my mental illnesses or anything else bothering me. No I’m not talking about heaven so calm down. I just enjoy the peace you get when you don't have a thousand things on your mind. 

Now that I have described to you my day, it’s time to actually start it. I know that the possibility of my day being exactly the same as the day before is high but I can’t stop my anxiety from making me anxious. I can go through the same thing everyday but never get used to it because I simply don’t want to. I’m tired of feeling sad all the time and I don’t know how to change my outlook on life. What I need to start reminding myself before leaving my bed at 6:15am is that, no matter how bad I feel like i’m getting or have been in the past, I have survived 100% of my worst times and I will continue to conquer any problems that I face, so… Good job, keep doing you boo boo!