I know you hurt right now and the last thing you want to hear is that you should stay strong or just shake it off. I know there’s nothing I can say to you that you don’t already know. The worst part is, I know you think no one else understands what you’re going through. But I do, because I’ve been there. Thanks for reading the first and second letters. 

Whenever I’m depressed, I discover that no amount of creamy licky ice cream or funfair hopping can make it go away. Of course, it may disappear while the ice cream is giving me a brain freeze or while the funfair is giving me a daze. But when the music ends and the night comes, it remains just me and the demons that lurk in the shadows.

You decide when to stop being depressed. You hold the switch. And as much as I don’t like it when people tell me to ‘be happy’ or ‘snap out of it’ as though it were a light switch with an on/off button- the truth is you have the switch. And you can turn it off by the help of God.

Now that’s a hard lesson. Because for me being depressed is a place of solitude and ‘peace’ where no one is allowed into my world. But that’s pretty selfish. And I’m only admitting that because I’m looking from the outside in.

Diary entry, 9^th July:

She’s a ghost 

Walking through the empty walls 

People she used to know 

Seem like aliens to her 

Unending conversations 

Have turned into a struggle for words 

When did she die? 

Why didn’t they stop her? 

Maybe they did but she wouldn’t listen 

Or maybe they didn’t 

Until she became the gone girl 

Familiar faces look strange 

Fond memories have lost their fondness 

She’s a ghost 

Living, breathing, dying 

She’s grave.

-M.

I had this serious episode a couple of months back and my family members kept asking why I was sad. Why I was depressed. I mean, my mom wouldn’t keep quiet about it. She’d rebuke the spirit of depression from me (which often sounded crazy to me). And I kept wondering why it bothered them so. How was my silence causing them heart ache?

Here is what I realized that day:

You aren’t on earth for yourself alone. But for these people.

Put differently, people need you alive. People need to talk to you. People rely on your smile to give them fresh hope. So while you may be enjoying that cozy shell like me, pop your head out and see the world of people going through tough times and still managing to stay alive. You need people. That, I learned while I was coiled up in a lonely ball on my rug with absolutely no one I was willing to open up to. It’s crazy how alone we feel even when we are surrounded by amazing people. Get out of your head and live! I keep having to remind myself of that.

Dear friend, your existence is much needed. Your smiles and hugs are much appreciated. Those words of comfort and inspiration that easily come to you are for someone like you. Give freely. Sow into lives. Love openly. Live because someone needs you to stay alive!

Love,

M.

Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. Psalm 42:11