I lost my father to suicide when I was nine years old. At the time, I had no knowledge of mental health conditions or why someone would take their own life. Our family was completely shaken; none of us saw it coming. My dad was always so full of life and love for everyone around him. I would give anything to have done something to save him.

At first I never cried about him; I didn’t think it was real and it never really set in that I would never hear his laugh again, or be able to hug him and tell him how much I loved him. Lord knows, I’ve made up for not crying as I’ve grown into an adult. As a way of coping, I’ve thrown myself into volunteering for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP).

This is a way for me to channel my grief into something good; devoting my time and passion to such an important cause helps me feel closer to my dad.

Suicide is 100% preventable and yet it is one of the top five leading causes of death in Georgia, and the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. Together, we can raise our voices about mental health conditions and fight to prevent suicide.

My case is the perfect example of why we need to erase the stigma against mental health. I believe that children should be taught about mental health early on, and that seeking help is part of healing. Just like you would visit a doctor to heal your broken leg, you should visit a doctor to check up on your mental well-being.

Thanks to AFSP, we are getting closer and closer to decreasing the suicide rate and increasing mental health awareness and education.

I first discovered AFSP when I found the Out of the Darkness Walk in Atlanta in 2014. I signed up for the walk for the first time and raised over $1,000. To see all of my friends and family donate to support my team and help in the fight against suicide was so inspiring. After participating in the walk and seeing the thousands of people who understood what I was going through, I knew that I wanted to be a part of AFSP and take on something that was bigger than me.

Currently, I am a volunteer for AFSP, and I serve on the Georgia chapter’s first Junior Board. We are a group of young professionals who all share an amazing passion for suicide prevention.

I am participating in another Out of the Darkness Walk and would appreciate if you could contribute to the cause by donating to my page. 

We raised about $13,000 at our Party for Prevention spring fundraiser in May of this year. We hosted the event at Orpheus Brewing, complete with live music, delicious barbecue, and a great live band. We raised the money through ticket sales, sponsorships and a silent auction.

It was so rewarding to see this event through from start to finish. I can’t wait to see what the Junior Board will do next!

I also had the honor of attending AFSP’s 2016 Advocacy Forum in Washington D.C. It was the trip of a lifetime, and I am so happy that I was a part of it. We marched up to Capitol Hill with a passion in our hearts so strong and our voices ready to be heard.

One of our ‘asks’ was to support the Female Veteran Suicide Prevention Act, which was then signed into law by President Obama on June 30th. Our voices were heard.

Another one of our ‘asks’ was to discuss the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act. This act was approved by a 422-2 vote by the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year. Our voices were heard.

The passing of these two acts is proof that we can lift the stigma against mental health. There are so many ways to get involved to support the goal of raising awareness for mental health, and fighting to prevent suicide. Please consider donating to our cause. If you have a passion, your voice will be heard and together, we can #BetheVoice to #StopSuicide.

I don’t think anyone understands mental illness. Even if you’ve seen a friend after they’ve finished up having a panic attack or experience fairly severe anxiety yourself. And that’s not to discredit or invalidate whatever feelings you yourself may have sometimes.

But this feeling. It’s like a drop of ink into water. It slowly and seductively spreads across my mind like a blanket of mist. So quiet I don’t even realize it. But once it’s settled there is no missing it.

I instantly become completely filled with grey and any idea of wiping it out of my head is deemed impossible. To rid my brain of these thoughts after they’ve settled is something that’s never been done for me. Thoughts like no man will ever love you, you are disgusting, you are stupid, you are worthless, and that no matter how hard you try, success will never come to someone as pathetic as you.

As the episode goes on, the thoughts get worse.

I purposely go look in the mirror just so that I can see how pathetic and humiliating I truly am. The easy solution is to turn the bathroom lights off and sit in the fetal position. But this soon proves a mistake as the darkness of my mind and the complete lack of vision combine, and I can almost see the thoughts racing through my mind in front of me.

My body begins to physically react to the negative thoughts. It’s no longer just crying, it’s muted moans. Like maybe if I focus hard enough, and cry loud enough, I can force the thoughts out of my mind. But there’s no luck.

I gather my strength to make it back to my bed, but the episode continues. My brain is pounding against my skull, and my solution is to start slamming my fist against my head. Though it doesn’t help push out the thoughts, the physical pain becomes a distraction for a moment. That hint of physical pain and the distraction it brought from my mental agony sparks another idea. I latch my fingernails into my forearm, a sweet spot for me where a scar resides from past abuse from almost a year prior that involved a knife. After about ten seconds, I release my grasp and am thankful for the relief that comes with.

After several repetitions, I begin feeling exhausted.

The amount of energy that has been exerted throughout the episode is more than my brain typically deals with in a day. I become sleepy and my eyes puffy, heavy, and still streaming with tears. The bad thoughts are still present in my head but going down. They’re settling into my brain deep down where I typically prefer to keep them. But always on high alert, ready to seep out any opportunity they get.

It’s over. It’s passed. The tears are pooled in the corners of my eyes, where I’m too lazy to wipe them away. I’m going to rest, and hope and pray that this doesn’t all happen again tomorrow.

In 1867; a certain Isaac Newton, still trying to dodge falling apples, was working on the 3rd law of motion – ‘For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.’ I’d like to discuss how this law worked for me, by giving me as much energy and inspiration to fight a disease that took so much from me.

But first, it’s only fair that I shed a little context on my life leading up to my depression diagnosis. When I was 10, I endured a life changing battle – one that I’m so proud to say I’ve won, but in no sense unscathed. My life up until November 2004 was, in search for a better word, easy. I had excelled athletically; with the physical strength of a boy that lived life to play football (soccer in your language) and run up mountains (Something that I did once to the despair of my dad, whose screams became all too distant to notice).

Then, on the first week of November I was ill. I writhed around in agony on the sofa for the better part of a week, having been diagnosed with gastroenteritis (a viral stomach bug) by a trainee doctor. Unfortunately, he made his diagnosis majorly wrong. As I lay there twisting in pain, my appendix was ready to rupture and change my life.

The next conversation I had with a medical professional went like this:

“Calum, the anesthetic hasn’t seemed to work yet. I’m going to have to put this mask on you to put you to sleep. Count down from 10 for me will you” “10…. 9….. 8……7…………”

My eyes closed, not to awaken again for another week. Unbeknownst to me, I had suffered peritonitis due to 2 litres of poison ripping through my body like a pinball shooting around a machine, smashing into healthy organs and cascading around me. My body couldn’t cope and shut down every organ (barring my heart and brain) whilst I lay there in a coma; able to hear fragments of my parents conversations and prayers but without the consciousness and physical ability to respond.

The following year was nowhere near as hard for me as it should have been, due to the most incredible family and friends. I will value their unequivocal love and support forever. From the moment I woke, the life I once knew was history and I had been shunted onto a new path.

This new life required me to learn how to speak and swallow again. I had so much muscle damage that it took me another week to build enough strength to turn my head and raise my arm.   Over the years, through physiotherapy, I’ve reached a stage where I can walk again and participate in life without many obvious impediments.

However, such a life altering moment wears down on you.

Like attrition, life chipped away at my resolve. At the age of 17; these small stones of not being able to play sports to the ability I once could, embarrassment of my situation, and the added pressure of fulfilling a life I felt fortunate to live, had carved a hole in me. It had worn me down and knocked me into a deep dark pool with no ladders. It had knocked me into depression. Being a naive kid that had never suffered from any signs of poor mental health, I did what too many people in my situation do.

I convinced myself that it’s just a phase and woke up every day, opened the wardrobe and grabbed another disguised face of happiness to wear. It wasn’t until late 2015 that I forced myself to visit the doctor, and received an official diagnosis. Sometimes in life, moments come along and you think ‘That’s changed everything’ these moments may include: Hearing the unimaginable beauty of Daft Punk for the first time. The first taste of Ben & Jerry’s that leaves you contemplating the meaning of Ice Cream.

For me, the diagnosis was one of them. I turned to Newton and realized that if this depression had been dragging me down for 4 years, then there’s at least 4 years of energy that I’m going to use to not only beat this illness but to completely obliterate it.

Step One

The first and arguably the most profound benefit of being diagnosed, was that it separated me from my illness. Up until that point, I thought my mood was as intrinsic to me as the birth scar on my neck, or my inability to perform tongue twisters.

Discovering that depression was an alien illness that had not only invaded me; but was making itself at home in my head, sipping a cup of tea whilst flicking through Netflix documentaries, gave me something to fight. It’s hard to fight a battle when you think you’re the enemy. Recognizing that depression wasn’t a fabric of my life, but more of dirty piece of cloth that had attached itself to me, I decided to reconnect to a former depression-free version of myself.

In a sort of premature mid-life crises, I began immersing myself with things that I had based my life around as a child. I started cycling again, surrounded myself with books from ranging from Fiction to Historical Fantasies, Memoirs to Classics, all in an attempt to rediscover what made me happy. I believe this to be such a vital aspect of maintaining a happy lifestyle. For one that is so simple, it’s often overlooked.

Whatever makes you happy, do it, do it as much as you can because the main person you’re responsible for keeping happy, is you.

For any True Detective fans out there “Life’s barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at” – Rust Cohle Matthew McConaughey’s nihilistic and detached character delivered many pertinent life lessons in True Detective, but this one grabbed my attention to most. Life is short, and if you can only master one thing in life, make sure it’s something you truly believe in.

Step Two

Use the resources around you to help others, and yourself in the process. I’m fortunate to be studying Marketing Communications & Advertising at Sheffield Hallam University – located in England. Sheffield is a great place, full of students and brimming with people that want to work collaboratively to end this mental health crisis. The depression I suffered with, gave me the inspiration to use my marketing modules to help break down the stigma attached to mental illness.

I, along with a team of students, have been working with a local mental health charity to redesign takeaway boxes, which incidentally are as familiar to students as krill is to whales. The new boxes (With different stick faces, catchphrases and colors on them) are designed to surprise and amuse students, encouraging them to share pictures online and using marketing to build awareness for the great work that Mind are doing in Sheffield.

Secondly, I’ve had the pleasure of working with the University ‘Social Enterprise’ team, to raise funds for a new concept. The concept (Cafe Branches) would be a local cafe that employed mental health practitioners to sit with and aid customers that wanted an informal chat about their health. In a similar-to-Uber style app, customers could choose their guide and see what debates and lectures were taking place.

Step Three

I became my own biggest fan. Imagine that battling depression is like a boxing match. It’s been a hard fight and you’ve taken some fair blows, you’re tiring and struggling to keep your breath after 8 hard rounds of sparring. The bell rings and you go back to your corner, sit on the stool and wait for the sweat to be wiped away from your brow. In jumps the trainer, but instead of Paulie (Rocky Balboa reference), it’s actually you, re-energising and demanding that you believe in yourself.

‘It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep on going etc etc’. Big yourself up every day, be biased, be encouraging. It doesn’t matter how trivial it is. Sometimes I give myself a pat on the back when I choose the perfect song to listen to, or even when I add a new word to my vocabulary. Constant self appraisal is the perfect antidote to the self-loathing and self-ridicule I used to partake in when I was at my deepest points, and I attribute it to my sanguine (Giving myself a pat on the back for that one) attitude now.

So back to Newton; if his law states that for everything in life, there’s an equal and opposite force, then I believe depression brings with it the tools to defeat it. Depression can rob you of the happiness you once thought was your default setting, so go back to the very things that brought you that happiness. Depression spreads false rumors and doubts in your head, so do the opposite and big yourself up as much as Kanye does (Just maybe not as publicly).

I am a college student dealing with my daily depression and social anxiety.

I have a constant internal struggle because I suffer from loneliness, but having social anxiety makes me afraid to put myself out there to new people. I want to build connections, but I’m too afraid of being rejected. So, I stay at home, often alone. At first, I chalked it up to just being annoyed by daily occurrences, but then I wanted to be alone too often. I would find comfort behind a closed door in silence, but knowing the need to progress, I knew I needed to make a change.

I was going through a rough patch when I first met my cat Cali, and I absolutely fell in love.

She was the cutest and sweetest kitten I ever met. Her head was way too big for her body, and the way she always looked lost and confused warmed my heart. I hadn’t been much of an animal lover. Even when my mother bought me a puppy for my sixteenth birthday I said, “Mom, I don’t even like dogs.” This time though, it was different. I took her home from the shelter and I began to spend even more time at home, but this time, I wasn’t alone. Cali was with me.

People laugh when I say that I love Cali, but I do (probably too much). She keeps me company when I’m lonely. She gives me space when I need it. She loves cuddling in the morning (which I am not too fond of because I’m not a morning person), but no matter what my day has been like, she is always there for me; no questions asked. I don’t have to explain myself to her, or feel inadequate when I say the wrong thing.

She took  a lonely suicidal college student, and gave me piece of mind and love. Of course, human interaction is still a necessary treatment to loneliness, but with Cali, I have more confidence to meet new people. She’s taught me how to love unconditionally, even when she wakes me up at 4am by sitting on my face, or when she scratches holes in new t-shirts. Cali has also taught me how to love myself. She’s taught me that I am good enough.

It may seem as though I saved Cali when I brought her home from the shelter that day, but actually, she saved me.

When I saw that becoming a Health Community Ambassador was something that Wish Dish was doing, I jumped at the chance. By serving in this role I can impact so many people and the health community by helping people share their stories.

I’ve come up with some goals to accomplish along the way.

• Create a community and safe haven for people to come and share their stories.

My ultimate goal while serving as a Wish Dish Health Community Ambassador is to create a community and safe haven. I want the Wish Dish Health Community to be an open forum for everyone to share their stories.

• Provide a resource/outlet for people struggling with health issues.

By providing a community for everyone to share their stories I hope it leads to resources for others to use. I want Wish Dish Health to serve as an outlet for people to share their resources and stories to hopefully help just one person who reads their story.

• Connect people who have endured health issues or have been affected by health issues in order to create a support system.

I want someone to read a story and realize that someone else has been affected by cancer, suicide, multiple sclerosis, addiction, etc. and now they have a contact person to serve as a resource for helplines, spiritual/religious resource, foundations, etc.

• Bring attention to more important health topics, specifically related to mental health.

By allowing people to share their stories about how they been affected by suicide, depression, anxiety, etc. it brings attention to these health topics that need to be pushed to the forefront of research so that we can work towards a cure or more help for those wanting to live a normal life in the community.

• Help overcome stigmas of mental health and disabilities.

Mental health and disabilities have become such taboo topics to discuss. I’m hoping through Wish Dish Health that people are willing to talk more and more about these topics in order to bring them into the light of health topics and let people know that its OK to discuss these topics with one another. We want to encourage these conversations in order to help save just one more life.

• Start a legacy of conversation.

The more people are willing to share their stories and experiences then it forces people to start a conversation. This allows people to become more aware of health issues that are affecting so many people around the world today.

• Help people become open minded and sympathetic to ALL health topics.

I want people to learn as much as they can about different health topics. Research topics like autism, cancer, HIV/AIDS, schizophrenia, ADD/ADHD, Zika, diabetes, etc. There are plenty of resources online to learn more.

TED Talks has a great piece on autism by Temple Grandin you should check it out!

• Use my future nursing degree to spark change.

In May I’ll graduate with my BSN and I hope to use that degree to help change the lives of NICU babies and their families. But for now I want to use Wish Dish Health to help change and save lives.

• Professional development for my future career.

By serving as a Wish Dish Health Community Ambassador it will help expand my knowledge on many health issues as well as see how people cope with certain things. This will help me tremendously with my professional development as well as help me connect better with my patients.

My name is Ashley Olafsen, I am 19 years old, and I literally just published a book!

I’m really excited for you all to read it – It’s called Survival of the Prettiest: The gender, mental health, and sexualization crisis as told by a teenager. I wrote it because it’s the book I wish I had when I was younger, and I basically just talk about body image, media, mental health, relationships, competition, and a bunch of other issues that kids and teenagers face while trying to grow up. I tell my stories and share my friends, and what’s even cooler is that the book is interactive and filled with reflection questions!

Let’s back track:

When I was 15 years old, I became angry about the things my friends and I were going through. We were dealing with low self-esteem, poor body image, mental health issues, unhealthy relationships, and so much more. For example, I was really struggling with my body image. I hated the way my thighs, stomach, eyebrows – pretty much everything looked. My insecurities were truly affecting me and keeping me from speaking up during class discussions, and becoming my authentic self. It seemed like NO one was talking or even cared about what we were facing, and it felt like there was this unresolved crisis going on right in front of my eyes!

I refused to accept that reality.

I decided that I wanted to get a conversation going. And more than that, I wanted to play a role in helping my friends and myself live up to our full potentials.

So, alongside three friends, I gave a self-confidence empowerment workshop to a group of 8th grade girls. My friends and I shared our personal experiences with the girls, in hopes that it would inspire them. And it did – so much so, that one of the girls decided to create a MOVEment with me.

Her name is Lexie Phipps and the two of us have joined together to create MOVE (Motivate. Overcome. Value. Empower) – Together, Lexie and I spread our MOVEment across the world. MOVE is a program designed to help empower girls into body positive, confident leaders and role models. We also focus on the importance of getting help as well as preventing unhealthy relationships. We give workshops at schools and even direct a 5 day summer program. This year, we had 70 girls!! To check out a video of what happened at the summer program, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=OwbVvNpS4p0

In addition to MOVE, I’m also a TEDx speaker (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhFP2yQths0) and Huffington Post contributor. I spend a majority of my time working to empower individuals to reach their full potentials, and will do this through whatever medium I can get my hands on. For example, here’s an article I wrote on 5 ways to become body positive: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/5-tips-to-become-body-positive-self-confident_us_573de084e4b0084474946a0d

And here we are today – with a published book! I worked on Survival of the Prettiest for a little under three years. I researched, wrote, edited, revised, revised again, cited, cried over, drank lots of coffee over, and lost sleep over this book…It was a tedious yet fun, passionate yet LONG process.

I can’t imagine not writing it – I feel that what I have to say is important and worth saying.

My Recommended Resource:

Survival of the Prettiest: the gender, mental health, and sexualization crisis told by a teenager by Ashley Olafsen

I would love for you to be part of the conversation, and I'm hoping that the book will leave you inspired, empowered, and more vocal.

Check out my book, and let me know what you think

---

Thank you for reading & wishing you all the best!!

February 8, 2016 was supposed to be a lot of things. It was supposed to be a lazy day full of studying, catching up on sleep, and preparing for the week ahead.

It was none of those things. If I am being completely honest, that day was a blur. A blur that consists of my phone ringing and hearing the tense voice of one of my best friends, hurriedly leaving my house, driving in silence, hugs, tears, phone calls, and more earth shattering silence.

February 8, 2016 was the day Allen Nasworthy died.

Saying he died seems so unreal. In previous experiences with death, there was a chance to say goodbye-with Allen I feel like I barely got to say hello. Allen was one of the best people I ever met. He could light up a room simply by walking in. His charisma was contagious and his influence was felt. In addition to all these spectacular traits, he was a warrior. A warrior who lost a tough battle

Allen was battling depression. He fought hard and still lost. Not only did he loose, but his loved ones lost a large part of our lives. Allen was a private person and did not talk much about his struggle, which is why when I was tasked with calling people that day, I did not feel like I was lying when I said “Allen died unexpectedly”- that’s what we told people, he died unexpectedly. Now that I have had time to process that day and think about it, I kick myself for phrasing it like that. Sure, it was unexpected to us. We didn’t know what the war zone in his head was like. People suffering from depression do not always feel comfortable or know how to communicate what they are feeling.

Why is this? Is it because it makes them a bad person? NO. Is it because they do not want to be stigmatized and viewed as weak? Studies say, absolutely. How do we change this? It is up to the survivors, the loved ones of the lost, and the ones still fighting to remove the stigma associated with mental health and depression. Cancer, heart disease, and other illness are researched and advocated for on a daily basis, mental health awareness and suicide prevention deserves the same attention.

Suicide leaves a hole in the hearts of those affected. It leaves questions forever without answers. Suicide makes someone think about the world differently.

I thought February 8, 2016 was one of the hardest days of my life-I was wrong. It was only the beginning of the hard days. Now I have to face a world without one of my greatest friends and mentors. I have to scroll by his name in my phone and remind myself not to text him. I have to pass the exit to my second home and not go visit him. I have to change the radio station when I hear the beginning of “You Should Be Here.” I have to replay every conversation we ever had and hope he knew how much he means to me.

I am trying not to focus on him not being here anymore, I try to live in a manner that honors the life he lived. Living like he did before he got sick. He gave his all in every task, no matter how large or small. That is why I will work tirelessly to bring awareness to mental health and suicide prevention. On April 24, 2016, I will be walking in the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) Out of the Darkness Walk in memory of Allen. The link is included below, and I hope you will feel inclined to check it out and educate yourself to save a life.

To those of you fighting, KEEP FIGHTING. Your life is valuable and your worth is endless. To those of you with a loved one fighting; support them, encourage them to seek help, love them, and choose your words carefully. To those of you who have lost someone; I am terribly sorry for your loss and pray for you daily. And to those we have lost to this ugly battle; you are gone, but never forgotten and I hope your soul found the peace it was looking for.

Out of the Darkness Walks!

As a nursing major who has been through a mental health class I was taught all of the signs and symptoms of depression. I was taught how to help detect it, I was taught how to treat it, and I was taught how to help others cope with it. What I wasn’t taught and what I didn’t learn was how to cope with the loss of someone from suicide caused by depression.

On February 8, 2016 I got a phone call. A call that I will remember for the rest of my life and the call that informed me my boss and one of best friends had committed suicide. Then ensued the gut punch and pang of “how”, “why”, “what could I have done?,” “how could I have not known?” and the “what ifs.” I asked off work, left school and drove all the way to the place I called home for two summers. There I was met with the reality that Allen was no longer there. I pulled in preparing myself to meet all the solemn faces and tears. I exited my truck and was slapped in the face with dead silence.

The place I once called home and could remember all the laughs, smiling faces, and kids screaming was now covered in a solemn silence for the one that had made the place so successful and home to me was now gone.

The following hours, friends and family gathered and told stories and memories about all the times we shared with Allen. I was then asked to serve as a pallbearer for his funeral. At the ripe young age of 21 I was serving as a pallbearer for someone not so much older than me. This was something I never thought I would have to do until I was much older. I served as one of his pallbearers with pride and dignity as he would have wanted.

Now I’ve spent the last couple of months fundraising and gearing up to walk at the University of Georgia for the Suicide Prevention walk on April 24. I have now made it a goal everyday to make him proud and work just as hard as he did. I recently completed a goal he had set for me years ago when I was under his guidance and will now serve in a lead counselor role. Unfortunately he won’t be here to see me serve, but I do know that he will be looking down on me and guiding me each step of the way this summer as I lead others.

I’ll leave you with a couple of things. The first is lyrics from For King and Country, a contemporary Christian artist .

“Oh to everyone who’s hit their limit, it’s not over yet, it’s not over yet, and even when you think you’re finished, it’s not over yet, it;s not over yet. Keep on fighting out of the dark into the light. It’s not over, Hope is rising, Never give in, Never give up, It’s not over!”

This song has brought me peace and has encouraged me to help others to continue to fight. No matter what you’re going through you are not alone and there is always someone there to help you. Talk about it! As I mentioned earlier I’m walking and fundraising to help prevent suicide.

The link to my fundraising page is here: http://afsp.donordrive.com/index.cfmfuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=970939

If you feel led to give or just want to check it out please feel free to do so.

Psalm 18:2 “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”

“What is depression like?” They ask her.

The number of times she has tried to explain this, put her feelings into words, was innumerable. There’s no way they would ever understand, but at least they were trying. It was nice that they wanted to know her.

“It’s hopelessness,” she replied, “It is walking into a room and knowing that you don’t belong, you aren’t wanted now nor will you ever be. It is that feeling of someone pulling away when you try to reach out and touch them. It is pitch-black nights, staring at the ceiling until morning because your brain will not let you sleep. It is the chill in the breeze that sends shivers down your back, but you have no place to take refuge. It is leaving home knowing you can never go back again.”

“So it’s like sadness?” they respond, “I have felt sadness, grief even.”

“Yeah, but it is more than that,” She continues, “It is sitting out of recess when your friends are all playing Red Rover. It is serving time for a crime you didn’t commit. It is wanting to be heard only to learn that you have no voice at all. It is the lump in your throat, the pit in your stomach, the slouch in your shoulders. It is being convinced that it is all your fault and you are the problem with this world. It is thinking that you probably deserve it.”

They sit with puzzled looks on their faces, unsure how to respond. “But you know it isn’t your fault, don’t you?”

Her face softens. “Well, yeah, I do, but that’s what makes depression so much darker than sadness.”

“It tells you that you are wrong, that you are the problem, that the whole world would be a hell of a lot happier if you had never existed.” Her voice catches in her throat, “You become so numb, that any feeling will do, even if it leaves scars in its wake. The wave crashes over you and you are drowning, but you were never breathing anyway, so what difference does it make. It follows you around and takes away the light in your eyes, as you pray that someone might notice you are being held hostage.

You want them to see, but depression always hides. No one is going to notice. No one is going to care. That is depression.

This is not my story. It may be about me, but it’s really a story of pain. A story that everyone can relate to in one way or another.

We view pain as an obstacle to overcome, a nuisance that must be obliterated, and yet, I think all of us realize that it is inevitable. Even at the young age of 18, having experienced little trauma or loss, I can still recognize this undeniable truth: No one lives without some form of pain.

Still, we never really just talk about it. Sure, we talk about it privately in therapy or with a really close friend or publicly in best-selling memoirs, but in the day-to-day, how often do you just acknowledge any pain you may be feeling and share it? Probably not that often. That would be weird right?

It would be weird if, in a casual conversation with a coworker, you told them you woke up worrying you were wasting your life.

It would be awkward and uncomfortable. But it shouldn’t be. If we all experience hurt to varying degrees, day in and day out, why is it so weird to talk about it like it’s normal? The more we hide our pain, the more we stigmatize it until it becomes taboo to talk about, suppress it until it rots our very core, and we isolate ourselves so that our pain becomes a defining characteristic of who we are.

It is in our attachment to pain that it gains its power over us, that it turns in to all-consuming suffering. We can never eliminate pain from this world; even the Dalai Lama, who has dedicated his life to eliminating suffering, hurt deeply when he lost his brother. However, we can deprive it of its power. We need to bring it out into the open, acknowledge it as part of everyday life, talk about it like we discuss our morning commute. We need to stop seeing discussion of our pain as weak or depressing or a cry for attention. Once we acknowledge discomfort and negative emotions as part of everyday life, they may still hurt but they will cease to control us.

In being open about it, we will gain a deeper understanding of our pain and empathy for that of others. We will be less harsh on ourselves for having bad days. We will cease to desperately grasp at fleeting glimpses of pleasure from eating or getting drunk or watching a movie. We will begin to let go of the many ways in which the pain we feel can build upon itself and dictate our lives. I may just be another story. Another story of depression or anxiety or an eating disorder.

Another story of just one type of pain.

But my story should be told as should everyone else’s. It doesn’t have to be like this — told in some grandiose fashion — but it should be told naturally, in casual conversation. When someone asks me how I’m doing, I don’t want my automatic response to be “good.” I want to be able to stop and really think about it and give an honest answer, even if that’s “it was a real struggle to get out of bed this morning and I’m just fumbling through my day.”

So pretend for a second that we’re just two friends talking about our day. You ask me how I am, and I finally say all the things I haven’t said the millions of other times people have asked me: For as long as I can remember, I haven’t liked myself, and I’ve let it screw with my head and my life in more ways than I can count.

I have moments of pride during my day to day and can identify periods of my past where I felt good about myself, but self-loathing is my default.

In my mind, everything bad in the world, every negative emotion, every flicker of a glance that my brain can interpret as a negative emotion is somehow my fault, and my accomplishments are solely the product of luck and privilege because my mind can’t possibly fathom that I could be responsible for any positivity in this world. These thoughts haunt me whenever I look in the mirror, eat, exercise, talk to someone, open my mouth in class, and try to get out of bed or go to sleep. It makes it hard for me to interact with people. I spend so much time and effort analyzing every tiny aspect of nearly all social interactions that it starts being more tiring than fun.

It’s introversion to a stifling degree. Because of that, any semblance of a social life I had has been gradually deteriorating since the beginning of my junior year of high school. I currently only have two actual friends, both of whom live hours away from me and have only barely seen the surface of what I’ve been struggling with. Because I rarely spend time with people in my dorm, a hall-mate once asked “so who do you hang out with?” I remember feeling a rush of anxiety as I stumbled through an answer in order to hide the truth: no one.

I’ve grasped at various things to give me self worth. I throw myself into school work, with marvelous results but only a fleeting sense of accomplishment. I’ve tried putting everything I have into fixing other people who are struggling, hoping that if I can just make their lives better, I’ll be worth something to myself.

But inevitably, I obviously can’t eliminate their pain, and when the relationship fails, I am just left feeling even more like a failure.

I’ve put a lot of my emotions into body image, weight, food and exercise and have struggled with varying types and degrees of eating disorders throughout high school. Until I left for college, I weighed myself at least twice a day, usually closer to 6-8 times. I used to come home from school almost everyday and consume ridiculous amounts of food before going to the gym, where I would workout to exhaustion so that I could come home and eat more.

That changed during the second half of my senior year when I developed orthorexia, a fixation on eating “proper” foods and subsequently lost 20 pounds. But magically, I still didn’t like myself. Some part of my brain said “to hell with it,” and I went back to binge eating, being healthy during the day in front of other people so that I wouldn’t feel guilty about about the large quantities of junk that I ate when no one was watching.

I gained back all that weight due to binge eating, but still, all the food in the world couldn’t make me like myself. I used to sob uncontrollably when I was alone, mostly at night before I went to sleep. I also learned to cry in the presence of others without them noticing or to run to the bathroom, cry for five minutes, and dry my eyes before coming back to class.

However, over the last few months, the emotion I’ve feel most often, if you can call it that, is plain exhaustion.

I sleep a lot more and sometimes it takes me hours to get out of bed in the morning because I become so paralyzed with thoughts about how worthless I am or how few things in life feel fun or exciting anymore. I’ve started having these moods, often after extended social interaction or for no reason at all, where I begin feeling tired, weak, and stiff. Every task becomes seemingly insurmountable; I fear someone addressing me because finding words feels so difficult, and the only thing I can think about is getting back to my room. That’s where the suicidal thoughts come in, not often but its happened when I’m just so exhausted by my thoughts and want to shut them up.

I fantasize about it, research it, search for a gun I won’t find, close my eyes while driving down an empty highway. Never coming close because I never actually want to die but letting it sit as a comfort in my brain that I ultimately control my thoughts. Everything I’ve described has some sort of name, and I am seeking help for those issues. But that’s not the point of this particular piece. The point is that my honest answer to the question “how are you” shouldn’t have to be hundreds of words worth of pain, written during all those years of saying “I’m fine.”

I should have been able to answer that question honestly whenever it was asked and slowly get every little pain off my chest each day in normal conversation.

I unfortunately don’t think I have the courage to do that yet (I put all my courage into writing this), but I hope to one day. I hope everyone does one day. I hope it becomes normal to acknowledge and talk about the hurt we all feel.

Now its your turn to share. How are you feeling?

(side note: These are far from my own ideas. I’m summarizing a few bits and pieces of centuries of teachings (primarily Buddhist in nature) that have only begun to permeate the western world in the last few decades. If any of these ideas really stuck to you and you want to hear about them from far more intelligent people than me, I suggest Happiness by Mathew Ricard, How to Meditate by Kathleen McDonald, or The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche)