Space Turtle

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Post #400, I wanted to note how much my mood has improved in the past 2 weeks.

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For the past 2-3 years, I was battling depression. I was so unaware of my own sadness, that I chalked it up to anxiety and stress due to school. It must have been; that was the only thing that made sense.

But depression doesn't have a reason or cause, and I guess I didn't want to become another statistic. I didn't want to acknowledge what was going on, because maybe if I pretended it wasn't as bad as I thought, then it would go away. .

Last summer was my tipping point. I noticed that the things I most loved in this world didn't give me any joy and I wondered what the point was.

When the fall semester started, I knew I needed help.

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When I first started therapy, I told them I had walking depression, since I knew I didn't have it as bad as others. However, over the months, I got worse because I still refused to acknowledge what I was feeling. December was the worst. I had never felt so completely numb to everything. Fast forward through 2 more months of this numbness, and my therapist finally set me straight.

It wasn't my anxiety doing this. It wasn't school. I was depressed and needed extra help.

Of course I refused medication as my next step because I still didn't want to acknowledge how bad things were. That same night, that was one of my worst episodes. That night, my thoughts were the darkest. I paced my apartment for an hour and ended up sitting on my kitchen floor, just staring at the wall for 30 minutes. I messaged my therapist and told her she was right.

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As of today, its been almost 2 months since I started antidepressants. I was so against them in the start but now I'm thankful. The past two weeks have made me realize how long it's been since I've felt authentic happiness.

You can see that I'm smiling in most of these photos - something I rarely did before because they felt forced. These are real. These are genuine.

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While I'm not 100% better and I still have those moments of darkness, they are much shorter and much less intense, leading to beneficial progress in my therapy 😊

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_VNW8vpVtM/?igshid=fhzt42gt7pi7