Things I wish I could tell my past depressed self
TW: Depression | Suicidal Ideation | Emotional Distress
Hey you. Yes, you. I am writing to you from three years into the future and I want to tell you something: I bought a new body lotion today.
It smelled like coconut and is 5 dollars and from the local drug store. And you know what? It made me so excited to go home and try it. I practically had a skip in my step walking back to the car. I couldn’t help but think to myself how my life has been filled with so much excitement again, like how it used to be when I was a kid.
To my past depressed self, I want to tell you that I am so happy now. So happy over the little things like buying a new body lotion. When I wake up every morning life feels like it has so much meaning and joy to it I don’t think you could’ve ever imagined what it would like when you used to stay up on that cold bathroom floor bawling your eyes out.
You might never believe this now, but I promise you you’ll make it. You'll make it through senior year and to graduation then to your first day of college. Three years from now, you will be going to a great school, have many friends there, just generally doing really well in life, and at the end of the day have that one special person who takes real good of that heart you have given to them.
You just have to keep holding on a bit more. You’ll fight through it. You are going to find your strength back again. That stubborn determination you’ve always had in you when you were little. It will come back.
You’re gonna see so much purpose in your life again. The places you want to travel. The goals you want to accomplish. The experiences you want to realize. The lives you want to better.
The black-and-white filter will come off, and slowly you will find colours hidden in the most unsusceptible corners of your life. You will look back at depression like a nightmare you have just woken up from.
You will look back at your teenage years and be glad that you didn’t give up. Because now you have so, so much to live for.
I can’t promise the bad days will be completely gone, but I can promise that, today, I haven't been this hopeful of the future in a long, long time.
Hattie Zhang
