Depression is not always crying. Sometimes it is just the absence of everything. I had read that somewhere and thought, yes, that is exactly it. I had been medicated since first year of university. The medication worked, technically, I was functional, I attended, I submitted assignments. I just wasn't there. My friends would laugh and I would perform laughter back at them. It worked well enough that nobody noticed.

I came in because my GP mentioned it and I had nothing left to lose. I was 22. I was supposed to be in the best years of my life. I felt like I was watching them through glass.

Around session 8, I woke up and felt annoyed that my flatmate had left dishes in the sink. That sounds like nothing. It was everything. Annoyance is a feeling. I had not felt anything in so long that even irritation felt like progress. Session 10, I watched a film and cried, properly, with my chest, at a scene I had seen before and felt nothing during.

By session 16, I was not fixed. I do not think that is the right word. But I was present. I noticed things. The light in the morning. Whether I was hungry. Whether I wanted to call someone. Small ordinary things that had gone silent for years started making noise again.

I am still on a lower dose of my medication. But I feel like I live in my life now, not beside it