Things I wanted you to know (Phan)

~Chapter 7~

This chapter is dedicated to my on going struggle with my mental health❤️
*very triggering content*
Dans pov (much apologies but I find dans pov much easier to write)
People describe depression in many ways. My mother describes it was a slope that keeps going down and when you hit the bottom you can't get back up. I've heard it be described as ongoing sadness and a darkness without any light. But that's not what it is to me.
     My depression is a storm. Married with anxiety, it has only one purpose. To pull me down. The longer I try to stay afloat the easier it becomes to go under. I've had depression for years. My counsellor was the first person to tell me that the way I feel isn't normal. I thought everyone constantly thought of suicide, I thought that everyone felt despair and sadness even though there was no reason to. Even when life is going well, I'm never happy.
     I'm an actor. A naturalist actor. I act every single day of my life. Unlike other actors, I play myself. I put on this façade of fake happiness. My stage is everyday life. I used to pride myself on the fact that no one noticed how I really felt. But then as I got older I realised they do notice, they just don't care.
     I once wrote a suicide note as a short story in my English book. People cried when they read it. My English teacher congratulated me on writing something so different from myself. I wrote my own suicide note and she told me she thought it was an excellent example of putting yourself in someone else's shoes. In this note I discussed my anxiety (social anxiety apparently according to my former counsellor) depression and self harm. Just because people don't cut/burn/ inflict pain on themselves where you can see, doesn't mean it's not there.
     Self harm saved my life. I don't mean that in the way that my life is now better, fuck no. I mean that in the way that I'm still alive. Had I not have turned to selfharming, I don't even think I'd still be here. It was something when I had nothing. It still is.