January 18 - I am timid. I am a lioness, I am tired and defensive.

Let’s clear some shit up, cause this has been on my mind for the past couple days.

You cannot decide to be happy. People who think you can infuriate me. You can make the conscious decision to try. You can decide to wake up every morning and have a positive day and look at things in a positive light and try to be happy, and it will have the biggest, most profound affect on your life. But you cannot wake up in the morning and decide to be happy and magically be happy.

Depression is a chemical imbalance in your brain. It’s a physical malady, the same way cancer or HIV or the flu are physical. It’s not made up, and it’s not an attitude problem. It must be treated with medication, therapy, support, and a positive attitude. But trying to wish it away will get you nowhere.

To say that one can decide to be happy is a giant slap in the face to anyone dealing with depression, or bipolar disorder, or SAD, etc. It’s a giant fucking insult. Because it dismisses our struggle and tells us that we’re just not trying hard enough. That we’re just being whiny and looking for pity and letting ourselves wallow in our own self pity. Are there people who do that? Duh. Just duh. But I can guarantee you that for every asshole mama’s boy whining about his BMW breaking down, there are five more people who wish they hadn’t woken up this morning because they’re just tired of living.

I recently got a message that I responded a bit harshly to, because there is nothing I despise more than the dismissal of my, and many people’s, struggle with depression. If you have depression, you know that you will be dismissed a hundred times more than you will be helped. Your doctor will dismiss you. Your parents will dismiss you. Your school counselor, and your friends, and your boyfriend, and your girlfriend, and your best friend, and your Tumblr followers, and your Facebook friends will all dismiss you. They’ll tell you that it’s hormones, you’re moody because of your age, no matter how old you are, that you’re making a fuss and they’ll send you home. People will always tell you that things are not as serious as you think they are. That you’re trying to garner attention. They will fucking dismiss you.

And guess what, people? When a child of thirteen comes into your office and says, “I want to kill myself,” that is very fucking serious.

And you better fucking believe that I will never, ever dismiss someone the way I have been dismissed, and I will never, ever again allow someone to dismiss me. Because I deserve better. And you deserve better, too. We deserve to be taken seriously because this is fucking serious.

How dare you people. How dare anyone tell me that what I’m feeling is teenage angst when thirteen year olds are hanging themselves in their own back yards and their parents come home from work with a hot meal in their hand to find their child dead. How fucking dare you. How dare you dismiss even one person’s cry for help when people are taking their lives every fucking day in ever-rising numbers in the middle of a country that claims to care but does nothing to help it, and then sits and cries, “I never saw it coming.”

You fucking saw. And you turned your other fucking cheek.