I have never seen a therapist for my depression, but I do take medicine prescribed by my general practitioner for what she deemed “anxiety with depressive symptoms”.  The further I advance in my college career, the further it seems that my depression advances as well.

Some days I just have an underlying sadness that I can’t quite figure out why it is there. Other days, it is hard for me to get out of bed. I feel like I am worthless, that none of my friends truly love me, and that all the hard work and dedication I put into my passions to make the world a better place does absolutely nothing.

Some days, hanging out with my friends is enough to pull me out of the rut, at least temporarily. But some days, or even weeks, I seclude myself and lay in bed most days feeling depressed and lonely. During these times, it takes a lot more willpower to pull me out of my depressive episodes.

Even though it doesn’t always feel that way, what brings me out of even my worst rut is the incredible support network and love that I have from the people in my life.

I have an extremely close family where I can call them up anytime and just hear their voices, instantly improving my mood. I am lucky to have sisters that go out of their way to make me feel better when they know I am feeling down, like when my mom and sisters delivered a bag of gifts to me after I broke up with my first serious boyfriend. Not only do I have my family (and my pets), but I have an amazing small group of friends that I know I could tell anything to. They understand more so than my family that I can be sad or depressed and have no “reason” for the sadness. They know when I need my space, or when I need a girl’s night or a dinner off campus to lift my spirits.

One thing that really helps me out of my depressive ruts is involving myself with the most incredible group of individuals at my school that I have the privilege of knowing. As the president of Active Minds at Loyola University, I get the opportunity to meet so many stigma fighters and mental health advocates on my campus that work to eliminate the stigma surrounding mental health. Specifically, my leadership team for active minds are the kindness, most thoughtful, loving, and understanding people at my school.

They instantly lift my mood with their positive affect and heartwarming commitment to making the world a better place for those with mental illness. When I am in the deepest of ruts because of my depression, these are the people that remind me of why I was put on this earth, what my passion is, and what I was destined to do.

Giving a voice to those around me who don’t have the strength or courage to find theirs is the greatest coping mechanisms I have found for my depression.

My advice to my fellow stigma fighters who struggle with depression is to talk to others about it. Let them know what you need and when you need it. Tell them how you feel so that when you are feeling that way, they can help you out of your rut.

But most importantly, find your passion. Find what gives you the greatest joy and purpose in the world, and hold on to that in the deepest moments of your depression. Remember why you are here, and all the people you are helping by just living. And remember, fight like hell.

There’s  a story that has greatly inspired me over time. A boy, whose teacher asked the class to write down what they wanted to be when they grew up for homework. The boy then went home and wrote down that he wanted to be on TV.

He turned in his assignment the next day to his teacher, she looked down at him, and then proceeded to call his mother. She told his mom that he wasn’t taking his assignment seriously and that he needed to write down what he actually wanted to be when he grew up, something realistic. Knowing that he was probably going to get a ‘whoopin’ as he arrived home from school, he tried to sneak in, yet he was caught and his mom told his dad to deal with him.

So his dad takes him outside and reads the paper and instructs his son to write down whatever his teacher needs to hear, turn it in, and then keep this piece of paper within reach and never forget it.

So the boy turns the paper in to his teacher and continued to work towards his goal every day and hasn’t stopped yet. That same boy is now the host of Family Feud, the Steve Harvey Show, Little Big Shots, his own radio show, has hosted numerous events, and made a living off his childhood dream.

That same boy is Steve Harvey. It is that same drive, perseverance, and passion that I truly believe burn deep within me and push me to challenge myself each and every day. To risk it all for others, and to continue to fight the good fight. I come from a family of 9 children. A family of more than enough kicking and screaming, bunk beds, and forced sharing.

I am 3rd to youngest, only to my two little twin brothers. A family where each one of us is in our own zone, and had chosen our own paths early in life. But with this I learned what it is like to have your voice drowned out among the noise. When often no matter how hard you try sometimes your voice isn’t heard even though it may be unintentional. It’s no secret that I am a black male, but it’s lesser known that black males only make up 2.7 percent of UGA’s student population.

Out of Georgia’s 30% black population, UGA does not accurately represent the demographics of the state as the flagship institution.

In a school with 35,000 other students it’s very easy to get lost in the wind, and get pushed into the crevices of this great institution. Too often left behind in the march ahead, or silenced among the masses. Coming to UGA and having to adjust to the demographics implored me to find ways to make this campus more diverse in terms of race, truly because I thought many were missing out on what a great college it really is based on stigmas.

I joined organizations like the Black Male Leadership Society, where I later went on to become President, and the Student Government Association, where I’ve been Chief Justice the past two terms. I used the connections I then made to be able to advocate on behalf of minority students and find unique ways to change the campus culture. It is what I have spent a lot of my time doing at UGA and have truly enjoyed every moment of it.

But I wasn’t always the one on the front lines of this battle. I was once deemed as shy or quiet.

Blending in among the crowd like a grain of sand on a beach. It was in the 8th grade when I learned a valuable life lesson as I failed to make the cut for the basketball team. I only wanted to be talented in basketball because it was what seemed cool, and what others seemed to care about.

It had never occurred to me at the time that my eloquent voice could be used for advocacy and impacting the lives of many in a positive way simply because it wasn’t flashy. That is when the switch clicked.

I knew I needed to use my voice for others. But by the way, I did go on to play basketball in high school, in case you thought I sucked. The decision to run for Student Body President came from a place of purpose, a place of passion, a place of hope, and a place of calling. It is that fundamental belief that we are all created equal and no matter how small, or how different we may be, we all belong and not only deserve, but are guaranteed a voice.

If you have ever played in a band you know that although some instruments may be louder and seem to drown out others, each instrument is critical to creating the ultimate sound. I run so that I may speak for the forgotten. To give a voice to the voiceless, and to bring together each and every student on this campus, from all walks of life, to unite as one and speak as one.

From a young age in school and with friends I knew and still feel to this day what it is like to be left out.

And even if one student felt that way, it would break my heart. I will never make promises that I can’t keep in ensuring that each student will have each individual issue taken care of. But I can say that I will spend every ounce of drive in me to strive toward that goal. It isn’t always about jumping to a storybook ending; sometimes you just have to write the first word.

Saying that we are ALL IN  is a very intentional statement. In choosing to run, I have given up internships and organizational opportunities, taken off work, and sacrificed time with family and others. I say that not because I want you to feel sorry for me, because this has been an active choice everyday. I want everyone to understand that sometimes things are bigger than yourself.

It isn’t always about you.

We are all just pieces of a whole picture, stories and snapshots of memories that tell a greater story, and I am here to lift all voices up. I have been told over and over in my life that things couldn’t be done. That I wasn’t going to succeed in areas of my life, and that my dreams and aspirations were too lofty or unattainable. But over and over again, I have proved each and every one of them wrong. I hope to do so again. I want to be an inspiration to each and every other student just like me.

I want to light a fire in every person I come into contact with and to help ignite their passions for what they believe in. Because then and only then, can they be satisfied with the outcome knowing that they gave it their all. I implore anyone who reads this to never give up, write your own destiny, be yourself, find your talent and use it to positively impact someone else’s life, and always, go ALL IN.

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)