Anyone who knew me around the ages 4-8 would describe me in my childhood to be just a big ray of sunshine. Around age 9 or 10, however, suddenly the Depression Fairy paid me a visit, and it got BAD. Especially being from a family that 1) didn't have a lot of money and 2) didn't really believe mental illnesses were necessarily "real", even after I was diagnosed, there was no real help offered to me. Over the years, I lost who I was as I slowly just "became" my depression.

This lasted until maybe 17. I was about to graduate high school, getting ready to face the world of work and college and everything else one is meant to do, and just kept asking myself what I was going to do, what I wanted to do. Well, what do I like? What kind of person am I? Oh gosh.. what kind of person AM I????? Que a weird couple of nights spent in even deeper existential horror than usual until one night I decided to ask myself "well... who do you WANT to be?" I figured that, if I truly had lost who I was, why not just use it as a blank canvas to paint "myself" on?

Don't get me wrong here, no one can just "think" themselves out of depression. But deciding I was going to work on (finally) having a "self" besides "empty, void human" is part of what pushed me to do things like seek medical and psychological help. A few years, a few ups and downs, and a LOT of hard work on both mine and various proffesionals parts later, I have found a bit of who I am again, and I am discovering more of who I am and trying to improve upon it all the time!