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“Depression is often seen as “all or nothing.” If you have depression, you’re supposed to spend hours, days, even weeks in bed and be unable to hold down a job, maintain relationships, or perform basic functions. And if you can do those things, then the question of: “Well, what are you depressed about?” follows. Because how can someone who just ran a marathon, had a kid, graduated college, got a promotion, or makes tons of money—or whatever it is that normal, non-depressed people do—be depressed? But the thing about depression is that it doesn’t care if you’re good at your job, if you make lots of money, or any of that. Depression doesn’t discriminate and it isn’t always visible. And because it’s not, people are shocked to learn that someone like me—someone as active, as social, as “happy” as me—could be depressed. That shock is dangerously misinformed. When people respond with surprise when I tell them I have depression, not only do I regret talking about my mental health, but I also feel invalidated. Like my struggles are not hard enough, serious enough, visible enough to justify having depression. When I get that response, I feel ashamed, ashamed that I’m not able to “get over it” or “look on the bright side” or “think positively.””

“In the history of the world, in all the people in it now, just one of them is you. You will share pieces of yourself with many people, enough strings to tie the world together that you cannot be alone, but you are still the only person in the whole world who is you. The odds of that are so significant, so important, they read like a love letter from the Creator to you. And that’s your power, your lifeline, your reason. I know it hurts—but it is worth living through so that you can change this place with the fingerprint of your life.”

Zdzisław Beksiński