Hi I'm Blue, and I struggle with mental illness.

Some of you will dismiss me, some of you will be scared of me, some of you will blame me, but a surprising amount of you will understand me, because 1 in 4 people experience mental health issues. Considering so many people experience it, we hear so little about it; it's the family secret you can't tell anyone, the fake smile so know one knows, the calling in sick but blaming food poisoning. It's hard for me to write about, but I write this hoping it makes it easier for the next person to speak about it.

I am going to tell you my story of my path with mental illness. I don't know if it has a happy ending yet...

It began with a tough situation at home which triggered the anxiety. It's hard to explain the exact feeling. It's kind of like where you're leaning back on your chair, go that bit too far and you are just about to fall back. That sudden jolt of panic inside your chest, that half second spike, that makes you fling your hands forward and grab the desk in front of you to steady yourself. That 'oh shit' moment. It's that. Only it didn't last for half a second, for even a minute, it lasted years. I thought I'd just have to live with it until the situations improved but even when it did anxiety still clung to me like a scarf of live electricity. That feeling could come when I was alone in a room sitting comfortably with nothing to do and a clear day ahead. The world would spin and tumble, I'd want to put my hands out to grab the desk and steady myself, but there was nothing there. Nothing to grab onto. Over and over.

And so, through anxiety's hot trickery depressions cold crept in. It sat at the back of my mind and laughed at me. "Why are you even trying? It's useless anyway." and when you're fighting a non-existent force from a chair, you're not even really sitting on, it's hard to argue with that. And this feeling spread.

It wasn't that I couldn't feel happy and it wasn't total sadness per-se. I did feel sad but the harshness of depression is that it makes the process of living excruciating. It's like walking through thick treacle with every movement pushed against and held back by sticky tar. Suffocating and exhausting. Even when there's no energy left you still have to walk. This same tar is in your brain slowing your thoughts, numbing your feelings. Even when there's no energy left you can never stop thinking. Then everything feels overwhelming. Even the small things. One task in particular for me, washing my clothes, was a mountain, even to think about it required so much energy. I could wash my clothes… but then I'd have to pick up the dirty clothes, taken them to the washer, open the washer, put the clothes in the washer, close the door, open the detergent bottle, put the detergent in. It was just too much. So, the clothes sat there. I know it's absurd. Everyone else can do it no trouble. So, I thought, maybe I'm just lazy. I should push on. I am a strong person, so I pushed. I can push myself enough to look like I’m functioning normally, but it doesn't get rid of the tar, the sticky molasses in my veins. On the outside I was normal enough but inside I was decaying. My mind was ablaze trying to grab a desk and my soul was swallowed in the bitter treacle. The worst thing was that I never felt at peace, however still I sat. However beautiful the morning, however hard it was searched for, no peace arrived. It was torture and my own mind was the torturer.

I didn't -want- to kill myself. That's messy and probably involved going out of the house, a body, sad friends. I just wanted to be dead. My brain fantasized about it. That sweet release of deep restful nonexistence. It seemed so much better than existing like this. If only, I thought, there weren't people who loved me. (It's a sick twisted logic you don't have control over; to you it all makes sense.) I didn't even know I was depressed. I thought what I was feeling was justified. That life -was- meaningless, I -would- be better off dead. It had been a slow decline into darkness. The light wasn't just switched off, I had no 'oh shit it's dark' moment. I didn't even realise I couldn't see properly because my eyes had adjusted to the dark as the light faded. My mind was replacing reality with it's own twisted night vision of strange shadows and dark half logic.

Yeah, I won't go out today. No, I don't need to do my essay yet, it can wait. They probably don't want to hang around with me anyway, It's not worth it, I'm not worth it, I'm worthless.

So, I hurt myself. Mostly to feel better or to feel something, I'm not sure, but it proved a point. When I saw what I had done to my own skin I had a thought: "This is what sick people do". The thought turned over a few times in my head and twisted into a lump in my throat. "Am -I- sick?"