How Hard It Really Is: A Short, Honest Book About Depression

by J.S. Park

It's in sharing what we go through that we are empowered to make it through together.

The best thing we can offer each other is each other, our set of experiences, our voices, our ears, so that the tunnel is less intimidating and the light is not as distant as it was.

Describing depression, however, is like relaying someone else's dream with someone else's tongue.

This is all the more reason we need to talk about what it's like. Depression thrives on its unrelenting invisibility, creating a fatal cycle in which its own camouflage is the very mechanism by which it destroys. It thrives by hiding. It feels silly to bring up depression, which is isolating—and to feel isolated often feeds into the isolation, which is depression's most insidious strategy. By talking about how hard it really is, we can find refuge in our connection.

"The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say 'My tooth is aching' than to say 'My heart is broken.'"[21]

"People bond more over shared brokenness than shared beliefs."

I believe external systemic forces are at work that hold down the depressed, but this cannot discount the internal forces that must push back.

"You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be." [53] —