Depression is NOT the end!

So, here's the thing...I am diagnosis with depression...and though everyone knows I have no one truly understands what it is. Everyday I wake up and have to push myself to do what everyone else does easy, this includes things as simple as getting out of bed. I work hard to conquer this...disease?...I worked my ass off to graduate college in three and a half years, I work (still at McDonald's) to allow myself to pay bills and have a slightly normal social life, and I try everyday to obtain the key to walk through the door of my 'dream' career, whatever that may be. But the thing is though I can be consider and have been told millions of times by others 'successful', I am still not 'happy'. But I don't know what happy is. I don't know what it feels like, looks like, or even how to be happy. I put up a strong mask in public that hides who I am and how I feel. I wear this mask not because I'm hiding but because it is easier. It is easier to be the 'outgoing college grad' everyone sees when I walk around town, go to work, or hang with friends. But it gets exhausting to wake up and get ready, grabbing the mask of 'Willis' on the way out. I am writing this not as a suicide letter or to make anyone worry or upset. My point of writing this is because I'm 23 years old and was diagnosis when I was 15. I have made it almost 10 years and slowing, though I can feel it still lurking in the shadows of my deepest fears and in the eyes of every 'happy' person I meet, I am living and growing while my depression is weakening in power over me. I am writing this to show that being diagnosis with depression or any other mental illness (because yes having true depression is an illness) is not a death warrant and it is not by any means the end all of end all's. It is a challenge that makes you stronger everyday and makes those who stay with you through every step even more special. What I'm saying is though depression may from time to time make someone have suicidal thoughts or even if you have attempted once or twice what I want you to do is stop and thinking about everyone in your life...all your friends and family, your classmates and co-workers, your crush, your ex's...they all have something in common and that's you....without you everyone in your life with be lost....just remember depression is just temporarily, you can conquer it, suicide is permanent, no one can overcome it.