One of the hardest moments of my life was when I was depressed. I had no motivation to do anything or try to do anything. I had the most negative thoughts about myself and felt that no matter what I would always fail; I stopped trying because I was so convinced that I was meant for nothing but failure. I was in such a deep and dark hole and believed that I would never get out. I believed that I would always feel that way and always see myself the way I was. I expected only negativity and thought any positivity was impossible.

The beauty is, I got out of that depression; I was able to heal myself by a lot of faith and a lot of work. I was able to see myself in a positive light and able to have that motivation again that I had lost. I was able to make it through, but it was not without a lot of hard work, a lot of self-motivation, and a lot of very difficult moments that made me question if what I was doing would work. The most important thing I did was look to God and listened to Him; I am a religious person and having faith really helped and allowed me to see things I was not seeing before. One of the things that I lived by was the saying "fake it 'til you make it"; every time I wanted to quit trying and wanted to be negative, I would fake that I was okay. I would smile like I was happy and act like everything was fine. The act of faking it until I made it got me in the habit of being positive every time it got hard. This may not work for everyone, but I do not think that there is anything wrong with trying it. One of the most effective things I did was, I wrote notes of positivity and left them in places that I would definitely see them; I had one on my mirror to see when I would get ready every morning and one in my car to see when I would drive every day. These notes of affirmation were a constant reminder of the truth depression lies to you about. You can get past this depression and take its control. You have to work for it and you have to work hard; it will be one of the hardest things you do, but it will be so worth it.

I am not saying everyone’s depression is the same; I do understand that some people’s depression is stronger than others. I am not saying that what I have written about will fix everyone’s depression. This article was mainly just to encourage and let people know that it does get better.