"Be strong" gets to me a lot. No one knows how hard I have had to work to still be here. No one knows the daily dialogue I have with myself to stay safe. I am sick and tired of being strong, I haven't the energy to be strong anymore, I don't need someone telling me to do what I'm already doing. Peversely, if someone says to me "You don't know how strong you are" that will embarrass me, I know my limitations and I am not strong enough.

Breadfish you are so right, over the past few weeks I've been told over and over how much better I'm looking. I'm not doing any better, it is just I've lost weight so look healthier and as you say I'm covering things up better too.

A really stupid question I got asked was "What does happiness look like to you?"
Erm - to me happiness is a feeling, not a look. Even putting semantics aside, I'm depressed and I have lost the ability to recognise happiness, it is no longer part of my emotional spectrum. I struggle to remember happy times from my past, even good memories are tainted by bad feelings. I wouldn't have minded the question quite so much if it had come from a well meaning bystander, but it came from a T who was out of her depth.