I Want to Want to Be Here: Living Through Depression and Finding Hope Again.

I remember being twelve years old, lying under my bed, staring at the chalkboard wall where I had scribbled my favorite quotes from FRIENDS alongside the names of my favorite actors. Tears streamed down my face as I daydreamed about a different life—one where I wasn’t me.

I imagined what it would feel like to be loved by someone who was fiercely protective of her loved ones and unapologetically herself. I imagined what it would feel like to be someone who was confident, powerful, and certain she could overcome anything. I imagined what it would be like to be friends with someone who was brave enough to start over, to rediscover herself, and to be vulnerable without shame.

That same year, in the back of my pink and green notebook, I wrote a will. I divided my “assets” among my siblings—my toys to my brother, my electronics to my sister. On the back cover, I wrote a quote that I think I pieced together from things I had heard:

“Life is too short to say no, so go for everything to the best of your ability, and have no regrets, because when tomorrow comes, it’s not going to matter about the past, but the present and future.”

At twelve, I didn’t understand how prophetic that line would become for me.

Writing became my way of surviving. I started sharing my quotes on a little Wordpress blog I named Inspiring My Generation. Back then, it was just a quiet corner of the internet—a space where I could pretend to be okay while screaming silently through my words.

Some days now, I look back and think, I’ve come so far from that little girl. And, I think about how much that little girl has created from her pain, so many take their pain and use it against others, but something inside me at 12 years old knew my pain would be a guiding light. Other days—like today—it feels like I am frozen in time. Like I’m still that broken girl under her bed, tears streaming down her face, daydreaming about a different life.

Earlier today, I found myself standing in front of the mirror, staring at the cuts across both my arms and along my ribcage. Tears hit the floor one by one. The thought looping endlessly in my mind was:

“I want to want to be here.”

That sentence broke me. Because it’s not that I don’t want to live, it’s that I want to want to live. I want to want to stay. I want to want to dance on the pier with my friends, to laugh without pretending, to wake up excited for the day instead of exhausted by it.

I want to want to feel joy again—not because I’m supposed to, but because I truly do. I want to go for long walks outside because I love to walk, not because it feels like it’s the only way I’ll survive.

That’s the thing about depression. It hides behind a smile. It sounds like laughter. It looks like showing up, doing the work, going for walks, and answering texts with “I’m okay hahah.”

If I didn’t talk about it online, you’d never know. And even when I do, people still don’t believe me. The smile convinces them I’m fine. The productivity makes them comfortable. The honesty makes them uncomfortable.

And so it gets lonelier.

Living in an active depressive episode teaches me time and time again how much my brain lies to me, because I know I have people around me. That’s why I take photos and videos constantly: so I can look back and see the proof. I can see when I left my home and danced and laughed. I can see the moments I ordered a perfectly dry martini with a twist, or a smooth glass of Pinot Noir. I can see that I’ve felt pockets of joy and still do, sometimes.

There’s a part of me that’s terrified to open up again.  Because what if it’s too much?  What if I ask someone to just sit with me in the dark, and they say no?  What if I tell the truth that I’m not okay and they go away? These are the thoughts that play through my mind at 2 am as I scroll through my contact list wondering who would pick up if I called and how they would respond.

I think back to March 24, 2019. To sitting at the cemetery, calling everyone in my phone, begging for help and hearing “I’m busy” again and again. To all the times I told someone, “I’m not okay,” and no one took me seriously. That kind of rejection, I don’t think my brain could handle it, so I do everything I can to never feel it again. So I smile. I say “I’m okay hahah.” And for a moment, the pain is quiet in a space of denial.

When I’m deep in a depressive episode, I spend a lot of time wondering what it means to truly live. Because I don’t feel like I’m living—I feel like I’m committing to survival moment by moment. I count the days I make it through instead of the ones I look forward to.

I wonder: Do other people feel this too?  Do they cry on the floor until they can’t breathe?  Do they stare at the wall, numb and silent, imagining a world where they don’t exist?

Sometimes I try to list the people who would miss me if I disappeared. And then my brain twists it: they’d miss what I do for them, not who I am. Eventually, life would go on. I’d become a  thought on a random Tuesday, maybe a memory reposted once a year. But then I think of Nonna. And everything changes. What would she do without me?  What would I do without her? That thought anchors me.

So I take a deep breath.  I count to ten. And somehow, I make it through another night.

Because maybe wanting to want to be here is enough for today. And maybe that’s what healing looks like sometimes—  not joy, not clarity, not certainty—  just choosing, one more time, to stay.

I’m also learning that asking for help isn’t eakness. It doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself. Reaching out—just talking to someone—is how I turn hope into action. I actually opened up to a friend about what I’ve been going through these past few days with different people in my life, and it brought such a sense of relief just to feel heard. I’d been hiding the pain, isolating myself, and in that conversation, something shifted. Just having someone listen felt like I built a bridge back to the world. By talking, I met myself there on that bridge—and crossing it reminded me that I’m not too much. I’m human. And being human means sometimes needing to be held, even if it’s through a screen.

Writing has always been that bridge too.

I’m sitting here on a Saturday night with a cup of tea, writing this blog, and thinking of that twelve-year-old girl under her bed. She didn’t want to want to be alive, she just wanted an escape, a different life.

Fifteen years have passed. I live two thousand miles away now, in a place with a view that feels like a dream most days. I spend my days still doing Inspiring My Generation, but not as the blog of quotes I once wrote to inspire people, or to convince myself to stay alive. Now, it’s a national nonprofit creating the conversations I never had, sending encouragement cards to patients in psych units, offering the messages of hope I once needed to hear.

I’m sitting here writing for her, that twelve-year-old girl who thought she wouldn’t make it. But I’m also writing for you, so you never feel as alone as I do in those moments when I convince myself no one could understand.

I know depression lies. It convinces us that we won’t make it, or that we don’t even want to. I’m in it right here with you. But maybe, we can make a promise to stay. At least one more day.