It comes unexpected. A darkness that slips through the cracks. An oil that works its way through the crevices of your life, taking hold of the joy that thrives within you. It’s a beast that cannot be battled with magic and weapons. It’s a mental game with the demons within. One best not handled alone.

What is this monster and why does he control you? It leaves you feeling helpless in even the simplest situations, making every day tasks appear impossible. Getting out of bed is a chore. Waking up and knowing you have to continue on with your life as if there is nothing wrong makes you angry. It hurts. Your body begins to betray you. It aches when you’ve given it no reason to. You starve yourself because just the thought of eating makes you feel ill. Nothing is appealing. Forcing a smile is the equivalent to bench pressing a car, and you haven’t been to the gym in a decade. The cartoons you watched as a child where the black rainy cloud follows a character around everywhere he goes has become reality. It’s not humorous. There is no escape.

It’s a fickle thing, depression. A mountain that has to be climbed. You will think you’re near the top, only to find it’s a mere plateau, and you tumble back down to the bottom, somehow feeling like you’ve fallen even further than the base. You’ve gone deeper. You stumbled and found yourself not at the bottom of the mountain, but beneath it. Hell surrounds you. Fire on one side. ice on the other, and what seems like an insurmountable trek above you. The camera pans back, showing the path back to the light. It’s too far, it seems like too much. Why bother trying at all? You’re just going to fall back down or collapse on the way. What’s the point?

Depression is not something to take lightly. It isn’t something to be brushed aside, or taken with a grain of salt. There is no switch to flick. You can’t just “be happy” like your naive former-self believed. It’s an all-encompassing mammoth that swallows you entirely, leaving you barely a breath. It’s serious, and it affects so many people that you know, but you have no idea that they’re hurting. It hides beneath the surface and strikes from within. That’s why we need to take care in the people we deal with. We need to stop judging, and lashing out. It doesn’t matter whether we know their story or not. It’s not important whether they’re famous, or some person on the street. They are a person. You never know whose life you might change by offering a smile, or a brief set of kind words. Sometimes a simple “I hope you have a great day!” can make all the difference. Depression can claim any soul at any time, and it’s terrifying. You don’t understand how scary it is until you’re there, and when you’re there, you don’t realize it. You don’t know you need help because you don’t understand what you’re going through. You think your life has just taken a nasty, unexpected turn. A lot of the time, you don’t realize you were in a depression until you’ve come out of it. Sometimes you need medicine to help, sometimes you need other people, and on rare occasions, you break out of it by yourself. The important thing to remember is that you don’t have to. You don’t have to. You don’t have to be alone. You don’t have to break out of it on your own. There’s help to be had. Family, friends, groups, or counseling. As much as most people scoff at the latter, it’s there for you. It’s there to help you find the light in your darkness.

Words. Words are magic. Write it out, talk it out, meditate. Center yourself. Get lost in another universe. Let music soothe your soul. Don’t turn away from those that love you, as much as you might want to. Cling on to them, let them carry you for a little while. Friendship and love can lighten your load. Don’t let the pain consume you. Fight back. Ask for help. You are not alone. I’ll say it again: you, my friend, are not alone.

The world lot an amazing artist this week. A soul claimed by the darkness. A man who brought happiness and laughter to so many is gone. And many of us can’t believe it.  These recent events emphasize that just because you assume someone is happy, doesn’t mean they are. You never know what is going on inside someone, and that’s a dangerous thing. A quote I saw recently travelling among social media said “The world is full of good people. If you can’t find one, be one.” This resonated with me, because people don’t realize how a little kindness can go a long way. What might seem like a minor thing to you could change someone’s life. It could be the equivalent of a nuclear happy bomb that explodes through their life in the best, most effective way possible. Life is busy. Life is crazy. We’re attached to our televisions, our phones, and any digital device we can get our hands on. Sometimes…too many times…we forget to ask “How are you?” to the people that matter most to us. We forget to love them. We’re to busy getting upset that our Wi-Fi connection is slow, or our PVR recorded the wrong show. A lot of us have lost sight of what’s important, and only we can reclaim it. And we need to. We need to reconnect with life and the people we’ve chosen to share it with. We need to be there and share it with them, enjoying the beauty of what we have rather than focusing on everything that we don’t. Life is short. Don’t waste it. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, don’t be afraid to say I love you, don’t hold back your laughter. Be goofy, do a random dance in the street, rock out in your underwear while you’re cooking bacon at 3:00am. Free yourself. Get rid of the pain, or the frustration, or whatever it is that holds you down. Let it go. And not just because Elsa told you to. Most importantly, be there. Show up for life, show up for the people in it, and experience it. Be there for them when they fall, and let them be there to catch you too.

You are not alone.

Even though you feel that way sometimes. Remember that, and remember that you can make sure nobody else in your life feels that way. Be the good you want to see in others. Be the good you want to see in the world. Don’t be afraid to be happy, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. You don’t have to live in the darkness. You are not alone.