Have you ever wished you could tell your younger self something? Some words of advice or encouragement to get through something? I wish the future me could've written to my 8th-grade self. Even though I'm way past 8th grade now, this words of wisdom still apply and maybe they apply to someone else as well.

To my 8th grade self,

Things aren't going well for you right now; you're stuck in a place you've grown out of and you're being strangled by this mysterious illness known as depression. You're scared, you feel alone and hopeless.

I am here to tell you that you get past this. You get past these feelings of worthlessness and like your life is no longer worth living. You learn to smile again, truly smile again. You learn to laugh and even cry happy tears from laughing too hard. You make new friends and your world expands outside that bubble that depression has sucked you into.

I'm not going to lie though, you'll still struggle with this illness. You'll still have some days where leaving your bed feels impossible and you just don't feel right. Luckily, those days are not often and you find ways to combat those days. You learn to fight back and be resilient. You learn to prove people wrong because you can fight this disease. You can go to high school and college and achieve great things. You'll be thankful one day for those friends, specifically Julia, who spoke up when she realized something was wrong with you. I know you were pissed at the time and felt betrayed, but she helped save your life.

You'll learn to breathe again. It takes time to get better, but slowly, you'll start putting the pieces of yourself back together until you feel mostly whole again. Things will still go wrong though and you'll lose a few pieces here and there, but you have to remember to take a minute to put yourself back together.

You'll lose people you love and your heart will break into a million pieces, but ever so slowly, you'll put it back together again. You will be okay. I promise. I know it seems impossible, but it isn't. You just have to do the most terrifying thing in the world and ask for help because people are more than willing to help you. Things get better; you get better. You just have to believe in the possibility of hope and a life beyond this illness. You've got this.

Love,

Your future self