My Top 10 Things That Almost Always Make Me Happier

1. Sitting out on the quad at my college with friends in the sun, just basking it in, talking or not talking. There's nothing like spring at college, there's a sense of holding on to it before going home. I love being able to walk out of class and find friends outside to sit and spend time with. Cigarettes are never better than on a spring day.
2. Diet Coke, its an addiction.
3. Hummus with carrots/sugar snap peas/pretzels(honey wheat or oat bran).
4. Cottage cheese with fresh fruit and Fage Greek Yogurt.
5. Whole Foods
6. Jason Mraz's "On Love, In Sadness"
7. Flats(shoes), so practical, so comfortable.
8. The Coffeeshop club at my school, we run a coffeeshop at night, have free lunch every wednesday for our peers, put on concerts of bands from Brooklyn and a lot of 'hipster' bands. I am not a hipster, the club is. I love it because it's a family, it was uncomfortable at first because it's this tight-knit group of students in every grade. We have a catered Thanksgiving Dinner for everyone in the group and an Easter Dinner and occasionally parties that allow us to get drunk and bond. One of my closest friends at school is someone I met through it. Seeing their faces arond campus and having a type of home is one of the best parts of my college experience thus far.
9. Walking around the city, with friends or alone. Absorbing all that New York has to offer is awesome.
10. Thinking of how far I've come in my depression and my ability to lead a normal, functioning life that no one could ever see what I've gone through.

I Stand Alone

This is a poem I wrote about a month ago during my intro to macroeconomics class. at the time I didn't realize how sad it is. Since then I brought it to my psychologist that I see at school on a weekly basis and we analyzed some of the lines together. It was very helpful, it brought up issues about my past that would not have come up otherwise solely for the fact that they may not be interrelated to what I'm dealing with now. I used to write really bad poetry during 8th grade when I was at the deepest parts of my depression and it's funny to me to see how much I've grown up in terms of writing. "I stand Alone"

I stand alone in an open field, nothing for miles I stand alone in the quick flash of sunlight, as if it’s seducing me, but I stand frozen as if nothing can tempt me from my place I stand alone The ominous black clouds mean more than rain comfort, familiarity, I see lightening strike(why can’t it hit me?) (can it bring me back to life?) I hear shouting from far away-voices I’ve heard before “get out of the storm! You aren’t safe here!” I stand alone, safe, with the rain, pouring. Bang, please bring me a gun to make that sound to me, not to the heaven’s above Flashes of light, oh god why am I this way? I stand alone in my mind, in my life, surrounded by thoughts, people trying Trying to understand, read my thoughts, my expressions, Impossible, I’m unreadable, undecipherable Years of practice. Years of pain. Years of sorrow Me, here, not even two decades old, and I I Stand alone, barricaded from those who try and reach me, touch my life somehow Save me, Save me, I’m scared. I’m alone. Always, I have run out of pegs to hold me up I stand alone Reels of memories flash by me minute by minute Frames of cut arms, of sleepless nights, of sleepy days and years Cries from my former self-a 5 year old girl, smiling, happy, beautiful Does she know? Does she know what she becomes? How could she? I stood alone. In a bullet proof castle, no one knowing the password, No One knowing why, where, how, what, and who did this. Where is the key? No magic answers or questions to Open up, forever closed. Forever I stand alone in a field, nothing for miles Quick flash of sunlight, seducing me, Frozen, I stood, as if nothing could or wanted me to escape. I stand alone depressed, needy, alone, empty, scared, restless Breathing in and out the painful mornings I wake too I stand alone. Terrified that flashes of the sun is the only happiness Exposed to the girl alone. In a field, detached from a world.

I stand alone, I have been here. I have always been here

Introduction

They say most people will experience a few episodes of depression in their lives; these episodes are a more than two week period of various symptons like extreme sadness, lack of sleep, lack of interest in past hobbies etc. People whose depression barely makes it pastore than half of my life, I’ve felt this way. Did I mention I’m only 19? November sweeps are lucky. Then there are people like me, my depression has been going strong longer than Friends was on air. The seasons consist of 5-10 episodes to 20, some seasons are consistent. There are years that I would only experience a few weeks of non-deep depression. But when you are in your eleventh year of being diagnosed with chronic severe depression, your view of it changes: this is way I was programmed, it’s my fate to feel perpetual sadness, and you learn to live with it. You learn to accept it, as hard it may be, some have told me I’m settling on a comfortable stagnant feeling-but at least I am feeling there were times when I honestly felt so sad, so hopeless, that to call me “numb” was an understatement. I was practically a rock. But then again, I do have hope because I have felt happiness, as fleeting as it was, I experienced it. As those of you who have struggled with depression, you know that happiness is something you work toward after you've been able to successfully wake up every morning. So this is my attempt, to not just vent and document my daily battle with depression, but to maybe help another person whose struggling and needs to know there's a way to live with depression, normally, functionally, and work towards happiness.