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There are days, even weeks, where I hurt all over. It's a physical pain deep in my body that I find hard to describe other than to say that it's black. It's an oily, dark, black pain that isn't fixable with pain medicine or chicken soup. I've lived with this pain since I was just a child. It's not that I have much of a choice unfortunately, my family has a long history of mental illness and I'm just the outcome of genetics.

I remember being a child and knowing I was different from the other kids but not knowing how. None of my friends had to visit the school counselor and draw pictures of a happy family. No one else would be in the hallway and start to cry for no reason, and no one else that I knew had teachers who kept close tabs on them like they did with me. I played on my own, and kept my nose buried in books. I seemed to identify with sad songs and never knew why I cried on the way home for what seemed like no reason at all.

In junior high again it seemed that there weren't any other students who were treated like me. My teachers seemed to instinctively know that I was different and treated me that way. I remember my seventh grade math teacher overheard me almost crying that I was going to be grounded for the semester if I didn't at least make a B in the class. I knew I had earned a C, but magically when my report card was sent home there was a B. A gift from my teacher to try to keep me happy and out of trouble.

In high school the aching, black pain was much more fierce. It never seemed to stop and I spent many hours each day isolating myself from others because it just hurt too much to be around anyone else. Everyone seemed to be perfect to me and be so happy and it was so frustrating for me to not know how to achieve that for myself. At least by this time I knew that what was wrong with me was that I was depressed. I knew, but still couldn't control it. There were days when everything seemed fine and I wanted to spend time with my classmates and friends, and days where I wanted to stay in bed and not talk. Talking was just too hard on those types of days.

Years have gone by since I've been out of school. After finally getting the help I needed and years of therapy, I can handle depression when it and the pain starts to overtake me. Gone are the days when I would bury myself in a book locked in a room, or just stop talking. Today I'm able to communicate effectively with my loved ones and even myself to say when I'm feeling depressed and to state that I may need help. There are days when that oily, dark black pain reappears in my life, but now that I'm older and have learned about depression it no longer overtakes my entire body making it impossible to live. Now I'm strong enough to fight back at it and win.

Learn more about this author, Marie J Kelley.
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