Dear girl who thought she had beaten depression,

Take a deep breath, you will be okay. I know, you thought you were doing so well- you were so happy, but then all of a sudden everything comes crashing down.You feel broken once again, and feel as if you no longer have the strength to keep going. You start hearing the voices in your head once again, telling you to push your loved ones away. They are destroying you, no, you are destroying yourself; but you know something they don’t.

You know your strength, you built the courage to defeat your own mind. They don’t know how hard of a fight you put up, and frankly they don’t really care about you; your demons are just there to destroy you. Nevertheless, they do not know who you are and who you are meant to be. You have fought them once, you can absolutely do it again. Find that small bit of strength left in yourself that I know you have, and stand up. Wipe that smeared mascara off your face, wipe those tears away. Take some deep breathes and look at your beautiful self in the mirror. Keep telling yourself that everything will be okay soon, it may not seem that way now but it will soon.

I know you are confused right now, you had thought you won this battle. However, truth be told life is a war and wars are made up of small battles. I hate to break it to you, but depression will re-visit time and time again, unfortunately it is not something we have control over. On the other hand, we do have control over OUR mind, OUR strength, OUR willingness to fight, and OUR hearts. Yes, there could be months, years, even decades of anticipation until depression comes knocking on your doors once again. Do not welcome it with open arms, stand your ground and make sure depression knows who it is dealing with. No one knows why depression decides to come back, but we do know how to defeat it over and over again.

So try to have a good night rest and just know everything will be okay soon. You are more than capable of achieving this, because frankly you have done it before. You may think depression drained all the energy out of you, but no, it made you stronger. Life is a struggle, accept it, and move on.

Sincerely,

A girl who has been cleaned for over 3 years, but still struggles to be completely free.