I'm still climbing out of the well but I found the ladder and I can see the light at the top. I have suffered from depression all my life, over the last 5 years I have been self-medicating with marijuana daily, but I stopped around 3 months ago. For me, the real change came from hitting rock bottom. Absolute desperation, I knew I wouldn't survive another day in this world if I didn't change the way I thought. I started reading. Everything. Reading about philosophy. Reading novels. Reading self-help books. Reading about psychology. Reading about others that have overcome depression. I inhaled knowledge, I overdosed on poems, I gorged on affirmations. I can't attribute the change in my thinking to any one sentence but I know that somewhere within all those words, I found some hope. I discovered that I am not the thoughts that plague me. Depression lies, your mind is out to get you. Your mind cannot be trusted. You are not your thoughts, you are the observer of your thoughts. You are the quiet, unmoved, unshakable witness that has been sitting silently at the back of the theatre, witnessing the torment and self-hatred on the screen of your consciousness, becoming so enveloped in the story that you tell yourself everyday that it forgets what it really is. You can change what appears on the screen. You can change how you perceive what appears. Slowly but surely, you can write the script to a new movie. You must break the habits, the repetitive trains of thought that have been ingrained through years and years of this awful cycle. At first it will feel forced, to find the reason to be grateful in every moment. To begin to doubt all the horrible things you believe about yourself. To wake up in the morning and promise yourself to find the beauty in the world that day. To look around and really see where you are, without judgement. Look for the hope and you will find out. Repeat new beliefs within yourself, good things about yourself, until you live into their truth. Break the cycle. Practice positive affirmations until they no longer feel hollow. Write a journal daily of all the things you have to be grateful for until it flows naturally, eagerly. Exercise until it feels good, not forced. Eat healthily until you crave water and vegetables, not junk. Listen to uplifting music until you no longer miss the depressing songs that allowed you to wallow in your mood. Smile until the true filling behind a smile one day wells up in your chest. Trust yourself, despite all evidence to the contrary, until you learn that you should have trusted yourself all along. Love yourself until it no longer feels fake. Open your heart to the possibilities until the hopelessness seeps away. Set new habits until there are no room for the old ones. Choose the better thought, the better feeling, in every moment. Be vigilant. I hope you find your own path, no one can find it for you. I simply share a small burst of my thoughts to hope that it sparks something within you. I was the hopeless, unloved, numb person you are once. Now I'm finding my way back to the truth of who I am. I hope you find your truth too.