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Chemical depression can happen to you even if your life is going great.

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It convinces me that I am alone in my thoughts and actions, that I am impossibly defective, too different to be understood.

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I see you.

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On my worst days, I forget to care about anything, especially myself.

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Since recognizing my anxiety and how it’s impacted my life this year alone, it’s become a hard truth to swallow that it’s not simply erased. I will have to fight it sometimes.

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A lot of the time, the reason you’re so stressed is because you have a million different goals to accomplish, problems to solve, decisions to tackle. Taking a break might seem counterintuitive, but if you keep going at this pace, you’re going to burn yourself out.

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This is not a passing inconvenience; this is not a copay. This is chronic illness.

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Talking about your mental illness helps people understand you better, and it helps you understand yourself better too.

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This doctor told me over and over that I have a medical condition. If I truly believe this — if this becomes ingrained in my soul — I might stop beating myself up for calling out of work.

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It’s important we don’t judge people on the small glimpse we have into their lives from pictures.