When you have had depression for 20 years, you stop expecting it to leave. You make accommodations. You build a life around its edges. You become expert at explaining why you are tired, why you cancelled, why you cannot commit to things too far in advance. It becomes its own kind of competence.

I am a teacher. I was good at my job. From the outside, nothing was wrong. From the inside, I had not felt genuinely rested in years. I woke up exhausted. I went to bed anxious about the next day before the current one had ended. I had a list of things I used to love, painting, long walks, cooking for people, that I had quietly retired from, telling myself I had simply moved on.

The anxiety is not gone. The low days still come. But they are weather now, things that pass, rather than the permanent climate they used to be. That is not a small thing. After 47 years, that is not a small thing at all