Depression - doesn't matter if it's considered clinical or situational - is like having an enemy with outposts in your own head (a metaphor I read somewhere). They tell you that you can't win, that nothing will change, that nothing matters, that every dream you ever had is futile, and that you are useless or worse. Don't give the b------s an inch, make them work for it, make them pay. Tear the tinny little propaganda and brainwashing loudspeaker of it's socket, and lay into the swine with the business end!!!

Every naysayer and jerk you ever met who made you feel two inches tall, who made you doubt yourself and humanity, every stinking fear that ever brought you to the brink of despair, drag them right before you in your mind's eye, as vividly as daylight, and tell them "You have no power over me, you are WRONG, now go ---- off!!!!". And mean it!

Oh yes, they fight back. They fight hard, and they fight dirty. Make them suffer. Make them pay. Fight them for every inch of your own hope and humanity. Sometimes it comes to this, I know very well.

Depression / anxiety aren't sadness, or grief, or being a bit jittery, or upset ... it's a black hole sucking every shred of hope, self-esteem, confidence, meaning, clarity, feeling, ambition and joy into it's ugly, greedy, voracious maw. Stomp on it!! Ball up your defiant fists, reach into it, and pull everything right out of it again. It can't have you. NO.