"What's depression like?" He asked.

To the fullest.

Most of your life is a journey to finding yourself. To finding the person that you want to be, regardless of what other people think of you. I believe that this journey takes the longest and sometimes you don't even find an answer. 

When you are my age, younger or even older, you are caught up in other people's opinions. What do they like about you, what do you need to wear, what do you need to listen to, who do you need to hang around with? Anything to be a part of the group, to not stand alone, but from the very beginning I haven't had much friends. I wasn't "cool" to begin with and so I had nobody to impress. I was myself, but I didn't like the person I was. Yes, that's a posibility too. Begin yourself, but not liking yourself. I'm sure a lot of you know what I am talking about.

When I met my friends, I felt a little bit more the need to impress. To be someone that wasn't sad all the time. That wasn't afraid to go out and do things that afterwards seemed very stupid, but without regrets.

I never managed to. I was simply to scared. To scared of other people, to scared of my thoughts. I wanted to lock myself in my bedroom most of the times and not go out. Not see anyone, not talk to anybody. 

My friends never let me. Sure, they let me lock myself away in my room, but never alone.

I've learned that even when you have friends, the only person that can decide who you want to be is you. You are not a specific someone. It's not like at the beginning of your life someone writes something down on a piece of paper and that's the person you'll become and have to be.

You can change.

Change is one of the best, yet scariest things out there. It takes time, it takes courage and it takes a whole lot of strength. It takes for you not to give up, even though you want to very bad, which is something I've experienced more than ones.

Over the past few months you've all been a part of a small snapshot of the journey to finding myself. I've gotten less scared, less insecure and even a little more positive. I am still Kyran, but hopefully a little bit of a better version of him. I don't want to be scared anymore. I don't want to be afraid of what other people think of me or what my thoughts whisper to me.

At some point in your life, you'll believe that life sucks. That life isn't worth living. That it's never going to get better and that the pain you're feeling right now, isn't worhty continuing, regardless of the happiness that will come in the future. 

I want you to believe that that is not the truth. The pain you are feeling right now, isn't worth giving up for. Changing who you are and changing the way you think is hard, but it's not impossible. It takes time, but one morning you'll wake up and be able to smile. And the same will happen the morning after. And the morning after. Until you realize you're not sad anymore.

If you don't like the person you are, if you don't like being sad or insecure or negative, change it. I don't meant that you should snap your fingers and everything will be alright, but take risks. Go out. Try and meet people, even though you're terrified to do so. If you like to write, write more. If you like to draw, draw more. If you like to sing, sing more. 

All those people around you, all those strangers who you care about so much, they don't care about you. They don't care about what you wear, they'll have forgotten about you tomorrow. So why would you let yourself be hold back by people who don't care about you? Why would you care about their opinion so much, if they aren't perfect themselves? 

The only opinion that matters, is your own and the opinion of the ones that love you. That want you to be the fullest you can be. To live to your fullest, dreams to your fullest, aspire to your fullest and to not be stopped. Because once you stop, demons have the time to catch up with you, so don't let them. 

If you've lost someone and you are in a dark hole because of that, remind yourself of the fact that they would still want you to live. Not only for  yourself, but for them. Do the things they should've done, see the things they wanted to see, experience things they should've experienced.

Live.

Because the worst thing is to grow old and at the end of your life lie down in your bed and realize your whole life has slipped away in front of you because you thought other people mattered more than you did. Because you thought the fear was too great to overcome. Because you thought you weren't allowed to live to your fullest, because the person you've lost couldn't. 

Don't let yourself be hold back. Change yourself into someone you would love to meet. Someone who would inspire you, make you think. Do everything you want to do, don't tell yourself it's impossible, because it's not. Dream and then try to make those dreams come true, because dreams aren't just dreams, they're possibilities. Try new things, even if it makes you uncomfortable. 

And if you are scared, let the people who love you hold your hand. And eventually a finger. Until you're ready to go off on your own. 

- Kyran