It's hard to be a sad in a place where image is everything. I would know. Living in a cloud when everyone else seems to be somewhere over the rainbow might be the most depressing experience of a teenager's life. Hence depression.

I am, and always have been, an intimate person. In a world where most parents don't care what their kids do so long as they aren't being bothered, mine just wanted to know what was going on in my world. I did not want them to know. How do you tell the two people who love you more than anything that you're sad and cry all the time, but you have no idea why?

I confided in a friend once that I thought about suicide. Bad idea. He confided in his mom, who confided in mine, and soon enough none of us had confidence in each other. The next few years of my life consisted of therapy and living in constant fear that when my parents walked through the door, it would be fighting, yelling, screaming...and the makings of good ole family fun.

I kept a journal my entire life. It was my one refuge. I could complain about the parentals, teachers, friends, anything in my life that didn't seem to be going right, and nothing ever did. It was a miserable life growing up in a world that always seemed to be flipped upside down and all I wanted was to turn it right side up.

It's been 11 years that I've been battling depression. Lately, my life has started to flip right side up and the sun has been let back into my world. It's a struggle, but the thing that helps now is when I have a day where I'm sad for no reason...it's okay. It's not a dark secret I have to hide anymore. If I need to curl up under the covers and hide from the world instead of going out to dinner with a plastered on smile, I can. And I do.

I realized that it wasn't just the depression that made my life miserable growing up: it was hiding it. My poor parents tried with all their might to understand and it's only been recently that they have come to realize it wasn't their fault. There was nothing they could do. But trying to force the sadness out of me with fighting and anger caused my darkness to grow because I had no where to turn.

I talk about my depression now because I don't let it define me anymore, but it's still a part of me. I keep a journal because that's how I feel my emotions in tact. I have a passion for faith because that's where I focus the passion that was once a dark secret. My faith has allowed the sun to come back into my life and it's chasing away the clouds.