My depression and I are also on speaking terms. I have balls to bust about this. What is currently up with glorifying depression? It’s not right. I have always been about shining a light on mental health, yes. But your words matter. Get this through your head.

Words Matter.

I have tangled with depression and anxiety for 7 years now, and to this day my therapist checks in with me monthly to see how I am doing. It is an uphill journey. I have lost battles left and right, but I will win the war.

Some of you need to read this and it shows. It is fucking terrifying.

Know that having depressive moments does not mean you have depression.  Clinical depression is not a few days of sadness. It’s not self-medicating and calling it a day. It’s not crying over a broken heart. It’s all-encompassing. It affects emotion, thought, physical, behaviour. It feels like everything happens around you instead of to you. It’s frustrating but you cannot bring yourself to care.

It is painstakingly isolating, how your mind constantly worries and detaches from everything and your body shuts down against your will and best efforts.

It is a slow descent into madness. 

It is exhaustion without reason. 

It is the loss of your most basic functions of concentration, the ability to control your emotions, the loss of interest and pleasure. 

It is painfully needing to sleep and rest but you physically cannot. 

It is inward self-destruction. 

It is NOT for you to just accept.

It makes you continually numb. And the thing about being numb? It doesn’t just take the sadness away, it rips the joy apart with it. 

Don’t give your struggles an identity. Don’t glorify having mental health issues. Stop. Don’t name it. Don’t be familiar with it. Do not fall in love with being depressed. It is your enemy and it must stay that way. 

Fight it. Fight it every day.  If you fall, stand the fuck back up and fight again. Write love on your arm. Write hope on your hand. 

Defy it. Wage war against it.

Morael Lulu’s Journal

I understand better than most people how isolating and devastatingly lonely it can feel when you’re in the gutters of an episode, whether it be a bout of depression or a panic attack. And while it’s harmful to romanticise depression, I know that most times it is a projection of the need to feel that you are cared for right then and there.

That is what it is. It’s okay to say it, you know? Find people who will do it without question, without judgments. One of the most telling signs that you have anxiety is that you have a constant fear of always being trouble to other people.

So here’s the first item on the agenda. Find people who you can come right up to and say, “Hey. I feel terrible right now. Love me a little louder today. Listen to me a little harder today. Hug me a little tighter today.”

I promise you, I will love you, and my love will be louder than the roar of your demons. This I vow.

And if finding people that can do this sounds impossible, this is an OPEN INVITATION that I am that person for you. I am here, 100%. I will be here, no questions asked, no judgments cast. I have so much love to give. Talk to me.

You are not trouble. You will never be a bother. You will never be a burden.

Second item on the agenda. Find your loves. Find your passions.

I have my love for creation and love for music. I cannot tell you how much both those loves of mine has made a difference in my mental health journey, and even undoubtedly saved my life on multiple occasions.

Creating— the labour of both my own hands, making something that did not exist before, whether it be through a new page I wrote, a new painting, a new poem, has given me a sense of purpose that I haven’t been able to quite feel with anything else.

And the other side of creation— reading, listening to music, observing a painting, consuming what others have created, has given me more joy that no measurement of time can count, for the belief that if their creation incited delight in me, my creation too could incite delight in others.

As iron sharpens iron—

Proverbs 27:17 NIV

I am constantly sharpened by the words my heart take in, the colours my eyes absorb, and the melodies my ears listen to.

But let me end this part, on this note;

I can tell you right here and now that you don’t need saving because all of us have it in ourselves to be our own salvation. 

As a reminder, I have a picture that I keep on hand, one I will again share with you.

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