To go out you must go through.

Don't get caught in the dark forest of depression.

When you struggle with depression or anxiety it’s like looking at the entrance of a dark, treacherous forest in the middle of the night.

The forest is all the pain you’ve been through and inherited. It’s the experiences that have traumatized you, the fears that you’ve refused to look at, the unresolved wounds that’ve been passed down to you,

It’s too scary to go through, yet you can’t get around it.

You try to run in any other direction, realizing hopelessly that the forest is all around you.

So, instead of going through it, you curl up in a ball, you close your eyes, you pray it’ll go away.

But every time you wake up, every time you open your eyes, it's still there.

Soon, you find yourself hopelessly stuck. Incapable of getting out of bed. Unable to have normal conversations.

Maybe you’re given medication that makes the forest a little less scary. Maybe it’ll trick you into believing the forest has disappeared.

Or maybe you look to drugs and alcohol to avoid the forest altogether. Only to sober up and realize it’s still there.