I have struggled with depression since I was 8 years old. I am now in my early 20s, and by now it is decently managed, but I think this is something I will spend the rest of my life with.

I wanna share two things - firstly, I want to explain what depression feels like for me, because throughout the years I’ve experienced so much ignorance and misunderstandings about this illness that has taken so much from so many people.

When I used to wake up during the thick of my depression, just as I’d open my eyes, still half asleep and unaware of any of my surroundings, I’d get the slightest, shortest glimpse into what I remember feeling like before depression. But after this fleeting moment, barely lasting half a second, it almost felt like being physically crushed by everything and nothing at once. The thought of having to go through another day, having to get up, having to move at all filled me with so much dread, yet I felt so empty. I felt like I could cry for hours, but still there was nothing inside me. Every task I needed to complete turned into thousands of steps in my head that I need to muster up the energy to do. In my head, going to brush my teeth became moving my duvet, sitting up, getting up, taking a step, taking another step, and another and another, pushing down the handle to the bathroom, opening the door and so on. Every simple thing turned into an overwhelming challenge, and as much as I was painfully aware of the simplicity of the things I was trying to achieve, I felt physically unable to complete them. I would go weeks without a shower, but absolutely hating every second of it without having the energy or drive do anything about it.

Whenever I had a particularly bad episode, my thoughts would be come overwhelmingly present, and loud. My head was filled with so many thoughts, thoughts of hopelessness and anguish, that were so overpowering that at times I struggled to have a simple conversation, let alone do any work at all. The thoughts become so everpresent and follow you through day and night, I struggled to identify what happened in the real world and what happened in my head.

As much as this is only a small, small part of the many ways in which depression impacted my life, purposely leaving out more triggering parts, I want to come to the second thing I want to share, in my opinion by far the more important one: and that is to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who asked how I was and genuinely meant it, who physically lifted me up so I’d have a shower, who tidied my room without me ever asking, who came to check on me if I hadn’t replied for a day rather than being angry, who held me when I cried for hours with no reason why, who loved me when I couldn’t love myself. For every bit of ignorance I’ve experienced, there was so much more love and support to make up for it. I can only imagine how hard it must be to support a friend or partner struggling with a mental illness, to see them at their worst, sabotaging themselves, and have the same irrational thoughts over and over again. But your support means the world. So thank you. Not just thank you to everyone who helped me, but thank you to everyone who supports someone with depression. Even if you don’t think what you’re doing is helping, it is. Depression can make you feel like you’re a burden on the people around you, so asking for help is the hardest thing in the world. So if you are in a position to offer help without being asked, do - it means so much more than you can imagine.

And then wait, and maybe the person will get better, and you get to see all the shimmering aspects of their personality that were suffocated by the darkness of depression. In my experience, people who have struggled with the mental health, are often the most loving, supportive, and empathetic people you will meet.

TL;DR Depression really is a debilitating illness, and the gravity of the topic makes conversation about it hard. But sharing your experience can lead to more understanding. Being supported by people around you is so crucial in making life during a depressive episode a bit more doable so THANK YOU to anyone who’s supporting someone through that - you are incredible.