I think like most comments here, I haven't really beaten depression. BUT I definitely feel way better right now than about a year ago.
For most of my life I had been dealing with depression, although I hadn't realized I was depressed until I was around 21 years old. I would say I'm a very sociable person but I never had the motivation to work hard and do well in school so my grades were abysmal. Even going to college I just couldn't bring myself to get up to go to class. I decided to take a break from college instead of just wasting my time and money getting bad grades. I spent a lot of time with my friends and Bf and partying, and I found myself abusing drugs to feel better. At that time I would have never thought that I was abusing drugs because I was "in a phase" and "just partying and having fun." But now that I look back I realize that i wasn't just having fun and that I was was using drugs to escape how I was feeling.
Me getting better wasn't this "Ah hah" moment. It was a long process of growing up over a few years and rebuilding my confidence, understanding my self worth and really asking myself "What do I want for myself?" Not what does everyone else want from me but what do I want? So after taking a break from college, I decided to go back but I continued to find myself struggling to find the motivation to go to class and work.
Around February of last year, I had a mental breakdown after finding out that my estranged father had cancer. My older brother had just come back from overseas visiting him and telling us about how he was and that he had cancer. My brother also told me a few days later that my father had planned to come to America to get treatment. I was suddenly overwhelmed with these emotions when coming to terms with the fact that I might meet my father again after more than 10 years without seeing him. "Should I meet him? What do I even say to him?" All these questions came up and I was faced with this internal struggle of what I wanted to say to him.
Here's some background to why I was so conflicted. My parents are divorced, my dad was abusive verbally and physically, he pulled our family into poverty and he cheated on my mom twice. So I was pretty much extremely angry with him and wanted to just tell him that he was a horrible person.
I broke down for about 3 days after realizing the biggest conflict I had with myself was with my father and that I should have address this issue sooner but instead I put it to the side, trying to just forget about him and wanting nothing to do with him. I was an absolute mess, bawling and thinking about my entire life and the things I could have done differently and how I was a horrible child and that I should have worked harder and appreciated my mother more.
After that I had a long talk with my family about this and decided to meet with him and that I wouldn't let it be an angry meeting and asked my mom a lot of questions like "how could she be so forgiving" because she had encouraged me to try to still have a relationship with my father but I would have none of that before.
My mom said to me then, "You know, there's nothing certain in life except death. And your dad, he's really close it. I don't want you to live your life full of hate and I don't want you to have any regrets later on in life."
After hearing that and talking to my family I had emotionally resolved my issue with my father. But sadly he never came from overseas and while I wish to see him, I'm unable to.
Right now I'm back in college trying to get my grades up. Im taking 4 classes getting As and Bs! It's a really great feeling and I've never been in such a good place in my entire life. I'm definitely more motivated and driven to work hard and I'm even trying to be more involved in school and helping out my classmates. Sometimes I suffer from burnout and I get tired and sad and I don't want to do anything but I get a bit restless from that after a day and go back to studying and working.
This was really long so if you read the whole things thanks for taking the time to read my story! As I was typing this I felt all those emotions come up again but it feels good to type this all out. tl;dr dealt with my daddy issues