Dear Self and to all my friends who face depression,

Depression. Depression is feeling like your mind and your body are not in your own control; being told how to act/behave, how to think, how to dress, and how to eat.

It is a deeply rooted psychological problem.

Trying to make yourself happy will not make you happy. Happiness does not simply occur through the words of "be happy". Regardless of your environment and circumstances, joy may seem incredibly non genuine.

Even the smallest of your mistakes will seem big and your insecurities will grow like mountains. It is going to be incredibly hard for you to go back to your happiest phase in life and even remembering that phase will be difficult. Your environment can cause several problems.

People will seem to constantly let you down, regardless of how much effort and determination you are putting into living and breathing and caring for others.

For some reason, nothing makes sense anymore. You feel that everything is a pointless endless circle and everything will go into oblivion. You want to speak up and say your mind but you have difficulty in doing so because you are afraid of hurting others. This is regardless of the fact that others hurt you several times. You have a strong heart and you try to forgive. You are so used to the pain. You have been through psychological and physical torture throughout your life and feel that you do not deserve better. You feel that your opinions do not matter and no one ever listens to you or pays attention. You feel like nothing. You feel like plastic; like an object to just be used and thrown away.

People can stab you as many times as they want and your body will be a living corpse. Yet no one can see the pain and no one asks even when they see. The pain is indescribable. You hurt very badly. And it is not just temporary pain. You try to tell yourself that it will just go away if you do not give it too much attention, but the scar gets bigger and bigger and starts to consume your body. You have no one to go to because people constantly misunderstand or do not place you into their list of top prioritizes. People will not be the bandage to the pain. So you do you. You might smoke a little weed, draw a little Hawaiian flower into your notebook, sing a little karaoke, wear a pretty lipstick--but your heart will still be hurting. You treat people with kindness but rarely get treated with such. You really want the pain to go away and these people seem not to understand. But you are hurting. You are hurting so so badly.

You stop trying. Because caring too much for other people is overbearing. It hurts you spiritually to love someone without them loving you back. Love is not a one sided frame.

You are an empath. At times, your love for others and the way you care for others will be something people neither see nor understand until it is far too late.

People will continue to treat you terribly, but you will learn to cope.

But here is the truth:

You'll move on.

You'll be a star. It will get better.

People will begin to understand. You will find "your people".

Here's to changing your perception: You will adapt to your environment. You will make the best of your situation. You will be happy. You will try. Some days will be better than others and better days will come. Do what you are doing. You are beautiful, forgiving, brilliant, and out of this world. Just be. You will be successful.

Dear self, be kind. Love. Learn to love. And love yourself.

"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ― Jalaluddin Rumi