Nialler takes a pic with a fan’s dogs.

It took me two separate trips walking down dark streets on the scummier side of town with my two closest friends consecutively that allowed me to realise a few things.

it took the warmth of a piggyback ride at almost midnight and stopping in the middle of the road at 11:11 to wish just to “be happy” and sprinkles of rain to realise that maybe this is what it is. And maybe I am stuck.

Maybe this is depression that has been added to the mix of your average teen’s wavering mental health on top of a lack of stability and cruel words that surely are only told in my head but in my mind’s eye they're coming from everyone’s mouths.

Maybe I’m sleeping all day because I can’t get out of bed. The motivation is gone and all I want to see are fields and dirt and water from anywhere but a tap and fresh air and to be able to breathe again without my chest aching, but it was the second walk in the dark that made me realise life isn’t like that. It was closer to 1am and conversation and observation made me realise that life is gritty and tiresome and makes me not want to wake up some mornings. And maybe the only reason I do is because of the shame for the selfishness I always feel, as though me paying attention to my own pain is the same as dismissing the suffering of others, or maybe I get out of bed for that cup of coffee or so I could listen to that song I’ve had stuck in my head since the night before. Maybe its because I’ve come to terms that no matter what I’m feeling; the Earth keeps turning. The Earth doesn’t care about my problems.  And maybe that’s simultaneously the worst and the best thing about existence.

I've been writing a long list of things that make me happy.

I use to read it when I was feeling down or mediocre or I’d add to it when something good happened, to remind me of that feeling on the sad days. But now its as though every day is sad and it isn’t anyones fault because if theres one thing I’ve learnt, its that I am a chemical imbalance and there is so much pain but it is no ones fault. It isn't my dad for not understanding or my brother that I’ve grown away from or my mother who's pain somehow has seeped into me 11 years later. Its not the fault of my family I use to see every second day and now see once every while, or my baby cousins for being oblivious to how the world just tears people down every once and a while. I just can’t get up right now. Its not the fault of the boy who put the fault on my own shoulders, who cast it from his own onto those that I love too, and ended with one of my best friend’s shaking shoulders; gasping for breath at 1am. Did it end though? Is that an ending? Will it ever end? If anything, the one thing I've taken from the boy with depression is that my own depression isn't anyone’s fault - there is no fault on my shoulders to scratch off and cast on those around me.