To the Person With Depression Who Just Experienced Heartbreak

I feel lost right now. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I like, what I enjoy. I can’t stand music. I have distanced myself completely from my friends.

I’m tired of seeing everyone be so happy. I log in to Facebook and pictures of happy couples flood my feed. I go to Instagram and it’s post after post of my friends with their significant others. I turn on the TV and romantic movies are the only movies playing.

I’m also tired of crying. I’m tired of sleeping every time I get the chance to. I haven’t managed to turn in a single paper since classes started three weeks ago. But sleeping and crying are the only things I feel like doing.

I can’t smile. I try to. Believe me, I do. And when a hint of a smile appears on my face, everyone can see the sadness in my eyes.

I have been let down. It feels like there isn’t one person in the world I can trust. There’s no one there for me the way I need them to be.

All of this comes from a combination of my clinical depression and recent heartbreak. But I’ve been here before. I’ve been through this time and time again. And here I am. Typing away on my laptop.

I didn’t die. I survived.

How?

One day at a time.

I wake up not wanting to get out of bed. But I do. I try to complete my to-do list. If I can’t complete it, that’s OK. If I can’t get out of bed, that’s OK, too. There’s always tomorrow.

And I go to bed and cry myself to sleep. But that’s all right. Because I survived another day. I made it. I lived.

And slowly but surely, there will be one day where you wake up feeling like yourself again. Living life to its fullest. Not one day at a time.

I know there might be a lot of you out there who feel the same way. I just want you to know — you are not alone. There are many of us going through the same thing.

People will tell you everyone goes through heartbreak. It’s a rite of passage and it will happen more than once in our lifetimes. They will tell you you’ll be sad for a few days or weeks and then you’ll feel better. You just have to cry it out.

The problem is, they might not understand clinical depression. They might not understand that sadness and depression are not synonyms. So you might not listen to what they say because they literally do not understand.

But I do.

Oh, but I do.

You will get through it. Trust me, you will.

Trust the girl who, because of heartbreak and depression, left town and didn’t spend the holidays with her family.

Trust the girl who, because of heartbreak and depression, cries for 10 hours straight, to the point her eyes are so swollen, she can’t see.

Trust the girl who feels everything as deeply and intensely as you do.

You will get past this.

If you or someone you know needs help, visit our suicide prevention resources page.

If you need support right now, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. You can reach the Crisis Text Line by texting “START” to 741-741.

Image via Thinkstock Images