Teen Shares Selfie to Show You Don't Have to 'Look Depressed' to Have Depression

U.K. teen, Ellie Newton, is years ahead of her peers when it comes to mental health awareness. In a post shared to Facebook, Newton, 18, busted the myth that you have to look sick in order to be unwell.

“PLEASE do not tell someone with depression/anxiety or ANY mental health issue ‘you look fine to me’, ‘well you look normal to me’, ‘you seem ok to me’ ‘you seemed okay yesterday,’” Newton writes, sharing two photos of herself, one with makeup and the other without. “The two pictures show two sides of me. The left is the face I put on for the world while the right is raw, unedited me.”

Newton goes on to explain that the photo of herself wearing makeup is a “facade,” a face she puts on for the world. The real, unedited version, Newton explains, is unkept and exhausted. “This is what my illness does to me,” Newton writes. “Just because you can’t see my illness, doesn’t mean it’s not there. I hide it, deal with it, push it to a side and keep it locked away but sometimes it comes out.”

Newton ends her post with an important point: You don’t have to see someone’s mental illness for it to exist. “No you cannot see mental health. No, it is not any less serious than other health issues. Yes it is real. Yes it shows itself in other ways. Yes it’s terrifying. So in future, please don’t tell me I don’t have anything wrong with me just because I look okay, thank you.”

You can read Newton’s full post below.