Phoenix: Live Love Laugh

A bottomless pit

Before my stroke, I didn’t truly understand what depression was. For the first six years afterward, I even denied I had it. I think, in part, because I was consumed by constant physical pain—bouncing from one joint replacement surgery to another, never fully healing before another part of me gave out. There was no relief, only survival.

I had always been the motivated one. Carefree. Energetic. Full of life. So when I used to hear that someone had taken their life or was battling depression, I couldn’t fathom it.

How? Why?
It felt so foreign to the person I used to be.

But depression—real depression—isn’t just feeling sad. It steals your ability to experience joy or hope the way you once did. It’s not just an emotional low; it invades your entire being.
The weight of it makes even the simplest tasks feel monumental. You can sleep for hours and still wake up exhausted. The things that once made you smile don’t even register anymore. And after a while, you start to believe you’ll never feel okay again.

What makes depression so dangerous is how quietly it distorts everything. It warps how you see yourself and your future. It whispers that you’re not enough, that nothing will change, that your efforts are pointless.Even when you know those thoughts aren’t true, fighting them feels like trying to swim through concrete.

Depression isn’t just sadness. It’s emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual exhaustion—all tangled into one overwhelming battle.

And that’s why it’s so hard.It’s not weakness. It’s a war happening inside—and some days, just surviving it is a victory.

Simply Put! My way, my thoughts…..

Depression? That was something other people dealt with.
I was full of life. Motivated. Carefree.
I couldn’t understand how someone could lose hope so deeply that it crushed them.

Then came the pain.
Surgery after surgery.
No healing, just a revolving door of broken parts and broken promises to myself that “it’ll get better soon.”

Six years.
Six years of telling myself I was “fine.”
Six years of fighting a battle my mind refused to name.

Here’s the truth:
Depression isn’t just sadness.
It’s waking up tired.
It’s feeling nothing where you used to feel everything.
It’s looking at the life you built and feeling like a stranger inside it.

It whispers lies.
It tells you you’re not enough.
It convinces you nothing will ever change.
And the worst part?
Some days… you believe it.

Depression doesn’t just weigh down your emotions.
It hijacks your mind, your body, your very sense of who you are.

And if you’re in that fight right now?
Hear me: surviving it makes you a warrior.
Not weak.
Not broken.
A warrior.

Before you judge this warrior – walk a mile in my shoes.