Depression is a sinister identity thief that seeps into every aspect of your life, striving to remove the person you were born and leave behind a hollowed and withered shell. It syphons off your goodness, your creativity and your joy and replaces it with a vacuum of dull aching indifference, punctuated by periods of profound sadness and hopelessness. It robs you of time, energy and ambition.

Even with the understanding that this is not your true self it is always lingering and trying to convince you otherwise. Of those who fight it, too many gradually succumb, a few overcome but most just simply endure. Strength of will, strength of faith, strength of character might temporarily mollify the symptoms but have little permanent effect on the struggle. You may analyze it, you may medicate and mask it, you may curse its relentless pull and temporarily rise above but eventually it will return in a fury to stake its claim, sullying your soul and blackening your thoughts. To face it alone is perilous but if you are fortunate enough to have support it will inflict a tremendous burden on your loved ones.

Acknowledging all this however, does not give you permission to submit. Fight it with all the energy you can muster. Invest in happiness at any cost. Leave grief for the grieving. Leave pity to the pitiful. Leave loathing with the loathsome. Breathe, reach, resist and above all live.