Ring! Ring! It’s 6:30 AM and time to wake up for school. As I get to school, stress kicks in as well as my worst enemy. Depression is a battle I have been facing for four years; it’s a feeling and a voice that sweeps over me daily, destroying relationships and school grades. A sensation that fights against me, creating a world that is out to get me. I walk to my locker, and as people say hi to me, I just give a quiet “hey”. Some people may think I’m shy or tired. Shy? How can that be? I am just the opposite of shy; at least when I am not preoccupied with this despair. Tired? How can that be when I went to bed at 9:30 last night? Oh, that’s right… insomnia. Almost every night I wake up not being able to breathe, drowning in my own tears. When I don’t, I wake up from terrible nightmares of people I love dying and it is all due to me. Guilt is a common feeling associated with my depression; everything that goes wrong must be due to me. No matter how hard I try to succeed, it backfires at me, and there is no one to blame but myself.

After homework that night, I go to my room and lay in bed thinking. As my eyes become red with tears and my cheeks become flushed a voice in my head cries, you are worthless. Nobody cares. You are a burden to this earth; just disappear already so the world can become a good place. You are causing nothing but trouble. Well, no one does take the effort to comfort me when I break down, that is except one of my teachers. People are always putting me down anyway…maybe I do deserve to die. While my subconscious mind is a war zone between depression and faith, my heart is pure. My mind tells me I want to die and escape this mess, while my heart tells me I want to be saved. I want to rid myself of this painful battle, but I need help.

I realize I need help. After four years of fighting, I’m getting weaker and the depression is getting stronger and stronger. I go to a teacher I trust and tell her about everything. Getting it all off of my chest is a huge relief and I finally feel loved. After that one time sitting down with her, I recognize that I am loved and I can overcome this sadness. Death would only be a permanent solution to a temporary problem. From then on, everything has seemed so simple. I started telling more and more friends. I started running and riding more and more often to rid myself of these feelings of worthlessness and hatred towards myself. However, that was not enough. As I talk more with my teacher, I realize that I need more than just confrontation of this battle; I may need professional help. With the help of my teacher, I worked up to courage to confront my mom who is a psychologist. When I first tell her, she thought nothing of it and I continued to face this terrible feeling. After a couple weeks, my mom finally recognized that I might need therapy and medication. I am still waiting for the test results, but I am confident that I will receive the help that I need. If it is not from my mother, I will always have that teacher to confide in. I am so grateful for the wonderful teacher that has helped me through this. This experience through depression has made me stronger, although I have been unknowingly on the verge of death for four years. I am still not even close to being back to normal, and I don’t know if I will ever return to the happy athlete, student, and whole person I was. However, I do know that I am making strong progress and I do know that I am loved. That is why I believe that I am winning this battle.