I feared what I could do to myself. I was forced to learn about myself when I became depressed. When darkness came over my thoughts, I had to learn why I thought these awful things about myself. The way I thought about myself when I was depressed disturbs me now when I am in a healthy and happy state of mind. But when I was experiencing that period of depression, I didn’t think twice about the disdainful thoughts I aimed at myself.

My depression made me feel weak about all aspects of my life. I felt invisible to my closest friends and family. I feared the future and I was hesitant to even consider the possibility that I still deserved a future. And that future most definitely was not a happy future full of love, laughter, even company. My depression tricked me into thinking I was alone when I wasn’t. I just turned blind to all the people who stayed, only focusing on the people I felt I lost - both physically and emotionally.

Dealing with depression made me lash out at people who only wanted to help me. Dealing with depression made me seem like a monster to people I needed. Depression taught me that though I needed to find strength in myself, I could borrow other people’s strengths as temporary crutches while I conditioned myself.

Depression taught me that there’s a lot to learn from other people. We also have a lot to learn about ourselves. I learned to love my imperfections, the imperfections I despised at one time.

I learned to love the silence that I once wallowed in. I learned, with resistance and after quite some time, to focus on the good things and find the good in the bad.

I learned that life is never as bad as it seems. Not meaning that I didn’t have an issue, but there are much more severe issues I could have been dealing with, that other people were dealing with, all over the world. Life is never as bad as it seems. Life is, in fact, spectacular, even if I don’t feel 100 percent. I learned to not settle for not feeling good, but instead I insisted on demanding the best out of what I could grasp from life.

From my time dealing with depression, I learned that life is complicated, but we complicate it more than we should ever have to. I learned to focus on the very best things in life, and that you should surround yourself with good people who support you and your goals. I changed my perspective on life, and life seemed to treat me better in return.