Before I start telling my story I just want to say that I'm not doing this to get attention for myself but rather to raise awareness about mental illness specifically depression.  Mental illness isn't something to be ashamed of its a disease that affects the brain just like diabetes is a disease that affects the pancreas.  I'm trying to change the stigma towards mental illness. 

My story begins in late January early February, I hadn't been feeling my normal shelf for quite a while and finally I couldn't take it anymore.  I had a major meltdown in front of my parents where I just wanted to feel good again.  I wanted to not feel like no one cared about me. I felt that if I were to just disappear no one would even care or notice, I felt that my friends and family had left me and I was totally and completely alone.  I was sick of faking a smile and pretending everything was fine when inside I was getting deeper and deeper into the dark pit of despair.  I felt hopeless, it was easier to stay in bed and do nothing than get up and go to school.  I started to hate things that I used to love; snowboarding, sledding, basketball games, life, school, etc.  I started to withdraw from the world and try to find comfort in anything; I tried music and it wouldn't take the pain away, I would try to sleep but when I woke up it was like waking up into a nightmare that wouldn't end.  I was tired of being tired and broken, I was tired of the pain that would never go away.  As I told my parents this they said I needed to go to a doctor and we did and he prescribed me some medicine that worked great! After a couple weeks the medicine wasn't as effective and I started to sink down again, so we upped my dose and things were looking good again.  Just like before it was good until a couple weeks after upping my dose but this time my low was worse, like never before.  For the first time in my life I seriously contemplated leaving the earth.  I had some very scary dark thoughts, but the real scary thing was that the voice that was telling me no one cared about me, that I was worthless, and that I should just leave; was my own voice.  When it was my own voice telling me those dark thoughts it was getting harder and harder not to believe them.  Finally one night I lost it, this was worse than before and I told my parents how I wanted to leave and they freaked out and rightfully so.  My parents got me into the doctor again and he gave me some new medicine and at first I didn't notice anything different but after a few days I felt good and for the first time in a long time I felt happy and I felt like my normal self.  This time around I started to change my views I started to see the positives in life, I started to see that that people did care and my friends were there for me.  To remind me to look for the good I wear a blue bracelet that reads "I'm not sad anymore" I wear this everyday to keep pushing on and know that even after a storm the sun will shine.  I'm sharing this as a story of hope to anyone who is struggling you are not alone and a person who suffers from mental illness isn't crazy, in fact they are full functioning members of society and they are some of the strongest people you can ever meet.  This is me being as real as I can offering hope and a message of survival.  Remember you are important and people do care don't make a permanent decision to a temporary problem.