Well, I made it to another day. I am very proud of myself that I have been able to keep the depression at bay these past few days. It has not been easy at all, let me tell you. I have tried very hard not to fall into the dark hole this week.

I had a wonderful conversation with a friend of mine. She told me that the best thing that she has done to battle her own mental afflictions is to own it. To get it out in the open and not hid from it. Constantly talk about it, even though it really sucks to talk about. None of the words she says are untrue at all. I have proof that she is correct. It is not the end all be all answer that everyone is striving for, but it is part of it.

When I started writing consistently this blog, over a year ago, the point of it for me was a therapeutic one. I had to just get all the feelings that were jamming up my head out in the open. This was the best forum I could come up with to do that. I could have wrote it all in a journal, and made it on a personal basis, but I would have still been hiding from it all. I would have used the privacy of writing a journal to the advantage of my depression. Sure, it would have alleviated some of the emotions, but I would have locked it away, and not shared it openly to the universe. There is merit to getting it out into the cosmos. It is not about being brave to share my story, there are plenty of heroes out there that are way more deserving of that title than me, but it is about venting.

This is far from an end all to my depression. Just like an alcoholic, that will always be apart of me. I am still learning my triggers…. and for the life of me, I can not find the combination that puts me into a downward spiral. It can be pictures, news stories, music, or a combination of all of them that can bring back memories, or just make me sad in general, which just causes me to hit the bottom again. In a way, sometimes I wish it was alcoholism, because I could stay away from the trigger. Instead, I am stuck with the mysterious world of depression and its side effects.

The real point I am trying to drive home is that we just need to share our experiences with the world. We should not run away from them, not by any stretch of the imagination. It is so hard to fix what you run away from, and the first step is getting it out there, talking about it, and realizing the impacts that it has on you… owning that portion of your life. Mental illness is real, it is something that people have, and it is something that can be managed. Trust yourself to make that first step, it can be done, I am proof….