Depression is not a weakness.

A few weeks ago, I started seeing a psychologist.

It was the first time since late 2013 and I was so disappointed in myself.

I was doing so well coping with depression on my own and it had been over a year since I had been feeling suicidal. I felt like a failure for letting myself get depressed again, and I felt like the fact that I needed to see a psychologist meant that I wasn't strong enough.

I told my psychologist this and she asked me what I meant by "strong"; what did a 'strong' person look like to me?

I half jokingly replied, "Pfft I dunno, maybe someone who doesn't have depression?!"

She then told me this analogy:

Imagine if you were watching a race and there were all these 'normal' people running the race. But you take a closer look and amongst these 'normal' people, there are other people competing in the race that have large rocks tied to their legs and arms.

Then put yourself in that same race. You look around and everyone's lane is normal, but in your lane, you're waist deep in water that you have to run through. And then just before the finish line, there are all these large boulders you have to climb over.

You compare yourself to those in the other lanes and you think that you're weak. Is that a fair judgement?

Of course not, it's not even a comparison! You're running a completely different race.

I told her that I had never seen depression in that way before, and if I saw someone else with depression, I would never in a million years say that they were weak. Yet when I have depression, I'm pathetic and the weakest person in the world.

She said to me, "You think you're weak because you feel weak. But of course you feel weak; you have rocks tied to your legs!"

So many people go through their own difficulties in life, be it family, friends, relationships, work, study, career, etc. But for some, like me, there's a predisposition to depression on top of all that.

But if someone had a predisposition to diabetes, you wouldn't call them weak. Or if someone's kidney was failing, you wouldn't say it was failing because they "weren't strong enough". So how come when it's our brain, just another organ like all the other organs that could malfunction, we say that we're weak?

I know when I injured my knee/foot/ankle, it was because I was overworking myself. I got a little bit too crazy with running, and just ran so much that my legs stopped working properly.

But when I get depression, I never see this as me overworking my brain, or me being under so much stress that the depression comes back. I always think I was just too weak to prevent it.

And my psychologist told me that when it comes to our mood, it's something that we believe we have control over. So when our mood is affecting our daily life, we feel weak because we think we should be able to control it. But unfortunately we can't always control how we feel.

A few things in my life have started to get better, and I'm getting a lot of support from my friends and family, and it's good going to see and talk to a psychologist about this. Depression isn't something you can easily fix, though, and sometimes it just takes time. I still find it difficult to get out of bed, I don't find the same enjoyment in things I used to love (movies aren't that appealing and I literally have to force myself to read), and no matter how badly I actually want to do something, sometimes hours fly by before I can even start to work up the energy to do it.

It will take time for me to change my way of thinking, but I guess I just need to actively keep reminding myself that no, I'm not weak for dealing with depression. In fact, I was strong enough to carry all those rocks all this way and I still remain standing now. I may have fallen over a few times, but each time I've gotten back up. I haven't given up just yet.