Description "It's okay. Someone who has never known shade can never truly understand light." When we're struggling, we tend to kill a part of ourselves all over again. We hate that we're suffering, so we dismiss our depression as being overly dramatic, and we censor ourselves even in the face of sorrow. All the while, we worry about what others think, and then blame ourselves once more for doing so. Eventually, exhausted, we fall into helplessness. "I think of myself as weak, and I feel like everyone can see that weakness. Even when I try to act confident, I feel like my inner fragility will show through. I'm afraid of looking pathetic. But actually, no one has ever looked down on me — I was the one looking down on myself the most." "That's a kind of self-punishing urge. You get angry, but almost instantly you turn yourself into the guilty one. It happens because you've been borrowing pieces of what looks better elsewhere and piling them up into an idealized version of yourself. You want to become some absolute standard of a person. But when you're struggling, your pain is the worst pain there is — no question about it. That's neither pathetic nor selfish." There is no such thing as an overly dramatic sadness in this world. And there is absolutely no reason you need anyone's approval for your own sorrow. So we're allowed to say it: that sudden freedom and choice can feel terrifying and overwhelming, that we are, in fact, depressed. "What do I want? I want to love and be loved. Comfortably, without doubt — that's all." We want to love and be loved. We want to live a life where the good outweighs the bad. We want to learn how not to hurt ourselves. Even after failure, we want to turn our eyes toward something better. It's only because we don't know how that it hurts so much. The author was always plagued by an inexplicable thirst and emptiness, and needed the empathy of people who felt the same way. So instead of searching endlessly for such people, she decided to become one herself — to wave her hand high and say, "I'm here." She hopes that someone out there will recognize a gesture like her own, come closer, and find comfort together. Why are we depressed? The reason is simple: because we want to live better, because we don't want to hurt anymore. Depression is rooted in hope. Without hope, we couldn't even feel sad. This book hopes to give you the belief that even if today isn't a perfect day, it can still be an okay one — that even a day spent depressed can hold room for a small laugh over something tiny. That is what life is. As long as we don't give up, we can keep living, laughing, and crying.