I’m fine. Don’t worry.

Everything is great. No need to worry.

I’m okay. Just tired.

If you suffer from Depression, you know these phrases well. You are constantly reassuring the people around you that everything is fine. Why do we do it? Because there isn’t anything they can do to help, so why make them feel bad.

Most of the time, you will not be able to see when something is wrong. That is from a lifetime of experience and practice. If you think you see something off, chances are things are worse than usual. If you see clear signs that something is wrong, you probably want to intervene. I don’t have many strong signs, but when my hands cover my ears, it means the voices are deafening. My head is so loud that I can’t think. In order to push past my depression, I have to be sharp.

That’s the catch-22. If I’ve gotten to that point, I can’t fix it. I have to wait it out. I need people to understand that I can’t make decisions or have meaningful conversations. I can’t be witty and pretty. I just can’t.

Luckily for me, those extreme episodes are rare or short-lived.

When people suffer from Depression, they get a bit cutoff from their support because it’s really hard to understand what we are going through. Sometimes simple tasks like making a decision or just too damn hard.