Depression is a bitch... and so many other things.

On television, they paint this picture of depression as the person who can't get out of bed, lays in a dark room, and has no interest in anything. Can't smile. Just want to stay in bed all day, Can't go to work. Doesn't clean.

Depression can look like that, but it also looks like a smiling and bright person around others. Painted faces, big smiles, and a positive outlook on life can be hiding a sadness that lives just under the skin. A silent wish to just not feel like this.

The invisible killer. Depression feels like the idea "no matter what I do its just not enough" except the idea is you and you have no control over that. Depression says that no matter what there is nothing more than what there is right now.

As a person who experiences depression in waves, I wanted to share this with you. There is a different way of living. I know it feels better to live in bed for a while. I know it sometimes feels better just to sleep. Waking up means facing what's going on in your life and it sucks. All the feelings you don't want to feel about things you can't control. You can't even paint a smile on because you just feel so hopeless. I know. I have been there often.

I have experienced the days and days of sleep, and just laying in bed when not sleeping. You try to do the things like self-care but then you just crawl back into bed because its the safest place in the world for you right now. When you thought you weren't tired anymore but you find yourself getting drowsy. I've experienced it all.

Outside of medical interventions, the biggest and best way I have found to combat depression is with personal development. I know it sounds like a bunch of woo woo stuff and like all "positive outlook" and whatnot, but it actually isn't just that.

It's finding out how to be okay with all of the feelings that come up in life. Life on life's terms. It's learning how to take back your mind and your thoughts. How to control your own thoughts, rather than them being something that controls you. It's becoming a better version of yourself every single day because you know you can't control the past, so rather than dwelling on what happened yesterday, we move forward and be better today. We find the roots to the weeds in the garden of our mind and we pull them out. We disprove them. We change the beliefs that exist deep in your unconscious mind that have driven a reaction to things in your life you're not necessarily proud of.

The best thing about personal development is that everyone that is in the process knows that it is progress, not perfection that drives us forward. We don't expect ourselves to be. perfect, and we don't expect others to be perfect. Imperfection is one of mans greatest gifts.

I have been very open with my struggles on social media, I have shared the ugliness, and then the overcoming of it. Not to glorify myself for overcoming it, but to show that it is a part of life. That it is normal. That it is okay to be where you are and who you are. To have the reactions to life that you have. It is okay to be imperfect because if it's not okay to be imperfect then that means its not okay to be human. And isn't that the point?

I'm not gonna plug my programs here, but if you're curious. Go ahead and check out my site.

As always, I love you.