Me? I’m nothing. Looking at me you don’t realize it right? I look almost normal. Almost human. But I promise you, past all the smiles and laughter. Past my friends and “Loving Family”, I am nothing. Or at least that’s how I feel.

See, the thing people don’t understand is that you don’t have to be diagnosed with depression to feel this way. You don’t have to be anorexic, bulimic, or suicidal. Plenty of people with depression don’t go and get themselves diagnosed because all that means is mood stabilizing pills that turn you into this feelings-suppressing machine. If I’m going to go through all this hell when I feel bad, I think I deserve to actually experience real happiness as well.

And yeah, maybe it’s nothing. Maybe this is all teenage angst and melodrama. But should that matter? If I still hate what I see in the mirror or feel completely worthless, useless, unheard, and forgotten around everyone I know does all that really matter? I don’t need a doctor to tell me why I feel this way. I just know I do and that should be enough for someone to care.

There are days when I want to shut out the world and it is all I can do to not do something destructive. And maybe I would just give up if I didn’t have to keep up appearances for everyone here. Those days it seems like nothing will help. But one thing always does. Other people. Not my parents or some counselor, but people like you. Friends. Who actually get ME, understand how I feel, and want to talk to me. Getting it all out there, trusting you, I don’t feel so alone.

And you’re right. Those people who have this, and it just gets worse and worse until something bad happens that leaves everyone around them devastated? They hold it in. They don’t say anything. And what happens is preventable! All people need to do is find somebody! Anybody who will listen to them. But they don’t. They’re scared and sometimes, when they do get the strength to speak up, these people feel like no one is listening. We have lost too many human lives because so few people choose to speak, and those who do often go unheard.

But, that’s why I know I’ll be okay. You’ve stuck with me for so long. You listened and offered advice and knowing that you understand where I’m coming from means everything. Through all this, I know I’ll be okay as long as I continue to talk. And you listen.