Yuuup.
Long story short, I didn't have a good childhood. I've never been a "happy" person, but I was taught at a young age not to "feel sorry" for myself, so I hid it. I didn't know that everyone else didn't feel like me.
Weight has also always been a huge struggle for me. I yoyo'd from being healthy to overweight until high school. Not to go into too much detail, but for several different reasons I basically gave up on life during that period.
For whatever reason, I couldn't kill myself. There were countless times that I sat in my parents' basement with a shotgun in my hand trying to get it over with. I'd even resort to playing mind games and trying to trick myself into doing it.
I just went on auto-pilot. There was no planning for the future because I genuinely believed and sort of hoped there wouldn't be a tomorrow. I gained a ton of weight and went from 200 pounds to over 300 in less than two years. I only went to school about 3 days a week, because that's all I felt I could physically do. Often I didn't have the mental energy to even get out of bed. I don't think many people realize what that means, and what that is actually like. It's not a metaphor.
Fast forward to a few months after highschool, I reached a breaking point. I gave myself two options.
I enrolled in College and started working out. In 2 years, I lost over 150 pounds and reached a healthy weight. I was crushing it in college too. I was still pretty miserable, but I had the hope of a better tomorrow which kept me going.
I graduated a year ago with a 4.0 GPA in computer science, with a minor in business admin. I am now a Business Intelligence Engineer for a medium sized public company.
Everyone sees my life and tells me how happy I must be. You want the honest answer? I'm miserable. Nothing really got better. Aspects got better, but I am just miserable in different ways now. I tried so incredibly hard in life to make things better. I don't know how to explain how hard I had to work to manage a 4.0, while losing weight, while having a hard time waking up every morning. All for a better future; All to eventually be happy.
Well, I'm here. I made it. It's not better.
Maybe changing habits and living a healthier lifestyle works for most people. It's absolutely worth a shot. But if this mindset is directed as a fix all towards people who are actually depressed, you can fuck right off. It sounds cliche, but you don't know me, and I hope you never do.
In a way, I'm happy for people who can be that ignorant. Hopefully they'll never be as low as I've been.