“You have no reason to be depressed.”

Depression isn’t something that comes and goes. It isn’t something that visits a few selected people who fall under a certain criteria. Depression is an illness. Like with most illnesses, many are vulnerable. Depression is like some parasitic leech that takes everything and gives nothing. It’ll lie dormant, letting you think it’s gone, then resurface when you’re at your weakest. Depression is a snarling monster in the night, creeping down the streets of your safe suburban neighborhood, knocking down your doors as you sleep and abducting unsuspecting victims as it pleases. You can never know if you’ll be next.

Like all other experiences in life, depression has to be felt to be understood. If the monster never invades your home and takes you into the shadows, you’ll never know what that’s like. You’ll never know that specific brand of fear, impending doom, and helplessness. You’ll never know how it feels to suddenly stop caring for everything you once loved with no rhyme or reason. You’ll never know what it’s like to look into the mirror and not recognize your own reflection.

What I’ve never understood is why people think they have the right to tell you what you should and should not feel. Like any two fingerprints, no two people are the same. Each have their own experiences, their own memories, feelings, goals, priorities…

So don’t judge me. Don’t take the limited knowledge you have on me, which you’ve gained from the outside, and use it to create some opinion of what you think I should feel on the inside. I am my own person. As Will said in an episode of Hannibal, “You can’t reduce me to a set of influences. I’m not the product of anything.” You don’t know what I’ve gone through, what I’m going through. You don’t know what haunting memories stain the inner walls of my memory palace and you don’t know what it’s like living life inside my head. Because honestly, sometimes this place feels more like a cage, and I’m trapped on the inside, paralyzed as I’m stuck looking from the inside out.

You never know what someone’s going through or how someone else feels. Not unless you’ve walked in their shoes. So stop with the judgements and the belittling. Just because someone doesn’t say something is wrong doesn’t mean they’re okay. They could be on the edge as you see them, but still wearing a smile. A smile doesn’t mean they won’t fall; all it takes is one push.

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Hi, everyone! Hope you liked the post. If you haven’t already, checkout my previous post, Sample ch. from my upcoming mystery novel 🙂

Hope you’re all having a great weekend!

Talk soon,

Jordan Antonacci
Twitter: @misterhushhush