The thing about living with depression and anxiety for me is that simple things like showering, regular and consistent sleep, interacting with people, grocery shopping, making my own food, basically anything and everything society has deemed appropriate and necessary to be a productive member of society are really difficult to accomplish on a daily basis.

**I want to say that I only have depression and anxiety and so my experiences are very biased and this post only speaks for my life experiences. Everyone has different experiences with depression and/or anxiety AND there are many other mental illnesses and chronic illnesses that I can’t speak about because I don’t have them…

I have my good days – ones where I make my own meals, shower, do several things on my to-do list, go out with friends. And I have my bad days – where just simply getting out of bed is difficult and usually I’m crying or really anxious over things I shouldn’t really be so emotional about. (On bad days, thank god for ready made meals at grocery stores or my parents making extra food because I would not eat otherwise…) Most days are some weird in between – where I’m able to get up and sluggishly make it through a few things before taking a nap.

And with depression, I often get intensely emotional over things that would have been just a moment or two acknowledgement from people who don’t have depression. Like last Friday/Saturday, when I got (partially) upset because the dogs I was caring for were really cute. Or when I get incredibly frustrated or irritated for extended periods of time over things that would have others go “oh damn!” and move on.

Trying to get my parents to understand is difficult – I’ve spent all of my life shielding them from the bad days, not explaining that the laziness they perceive is actually depression worming its way through my head and life. Looking back, I doubt they’ve seen any incredibly bad episodes because in my family, there is no chance for negative emotions. We were always passive aggressive, hid our angry and sadness. My parents frequently told me that I would never have any friends with my terrible attitude (that same attitude I now realize was my depression presenting itself in my awkward teenage life).