It’s hard to say exactly when I started feeling depressed. While doing my Bachelor’s in Fine Arts in university, the Montreal winters became so unbearable that I realized I couldn’t live that way any longer. (Imagine -40°C/F for almost a week and a lack of bright sunlight in January or February.) After years of feeling generally low and remembering good times only with difficulty, two winters consecutive dipped me so low that I came to the brink. Looking back almost nineteen years, it’s hard to say if I was truly suicidal. I did think that I was a horrible person and that the world would have been better off without me—but I remember thinking it would have killed my mother if I took my own life. That’s when I decided to see our family doctor. When I sat down to talk about how I felt, it blew my mind that some of the things I was feeling were typical symptoms of depression. Up to that point, I hadn’t thought of myself as “depressed” but instead living in a horrid state that seemed to be warranted because of the shame I felt. And that sense of shame stemmed from my one key symptom: intrusive thoughts. My doctor asked me if I was having thoughts about hurting the people around me or other “dark” thoughts. Indeed, these had plagued me for years. When the lows of those oppressive Montreal winters hit, the thoughts became unrelenting. I won't go into detail about the content of those thoughts, but suffice it to say they were filled with terrible things that made me feel like a danger to those around me. In an interview about living with manic depression, comedian Maria Bamford couldn’t talk openly about her intrusive thoughts—that’s how dark they are. And when you feel this low, you soon feel ashamed—convinced that you’re capable of such heinous acts, even when you’re not. (When my father suffered from a nervous breakdown and near-suicide in the early 1990s, I learned that he also suffered from intrusive thoughts.) Learning that this was a part of a disease and not just my own dangerous psychosis was a breakthrough. After finding the proper medication for depression, these thoughts have largely subsided. If I experience them now, I acknowledge the thoughts for what they are, and they no longer cause me anxiety or self-hatred. And since I haven’t stabbed anyone over their use of Comic Sans in a design, I figure I’m good for the long term. Coupled with my intrusive thoughts were additional symptoms that were typical of depression, like crippling anxiety. When you’re feeling this low, being around people is like stepping into a boiling hot tub of water. I still live with anxiety, but it is not as severe as it was when I was depressed. Add to those doozies a complete lack of focus. I remember talking to a friend at school when I was in this grim state, and she remarked how I was kind of talking through her because I wasn’t all there. That’s how hard it is to focus. Trying to study was a nightmare because nothing sank in, and I was only half processing things. This increased the anxiety because exams and work deadlines weren't forgiving with time. Then came the cherry to top that classic depression sundae: sleep problems. You either sleep too little or you can’t get out of bed because of a lack of motivation. And you ain't losing sleep because the van’s a-rockin’—your sex drive is just as depressed as you are. Depression is not like sadness. It makes everything difficult to the point that there seems to be little point to going on. For non-sufferers, understanding depression can be like trying to imagine “the universe”—you know it’s big, but your mind would explode if you could experience the actual thing.