A True Story
"Andrew Cripps Story"
"Sadness is a super important thing not to be ashamed about but to include in our lives. One of the bigger problems with sadness or depression is there's so much shame around it. If you have it you're a failure. You are felt as being very unattractive."
~Mike Mills
If anyone had told Hanne Arts several years ago that everything would get better, she would have nodded while screaming disbelief inside her head. She thought things simply could not get better, that she'd be forever feeling imprisoned in a dark room.
While her friends went out, she chose to remain home. When she went to parties, she couldn’t help but think she'd have had a better time on her own. Even when surrounded by others, she felt shut out, as if she were different from everyone else.
I've learned that you can grow up, and learn not to make the same mistakes again, but how can you learn not to feel the same way again? I have personally struggled with depression since I was in grade 8. I started getting feelings of aloneness, weight that I couldn't lift from my shoulders, and a burden that was just too much to bear. My grades started going down. I felt alone. I gained weight...a lot of weight. I lost most of my friends because I only ever wanted to be alone. I couldn't think straight. A cloud of fog swarmed around inside my head day after day. What do you do when you live in a world full of people, but feel completely isolated and alone? Depression hurts.