There’s Nothing Wrong With Me. I’m Just Depressed.

Let’s get something straight:
There’s nothing wrong with me.

I’m just depressed.

I’m not broken.
I’m not malfunctioning.
I’m not a glitch in the human experience.
I’m just seeing things without the mask.

The same mask you wear.
The same one they handed you in kindergarten with your juice box and your dream journal.
The one that says, “Smile, nod, blend in. Everything’s fine.”

It’s not fine.

You know it.
I know it.
The difference is, I don’t have the energy — or the delusion — to pretend it is.

I walk around like everyone else.
I go to the store.
I answer emails.
I say “I’m good” when someone asks how I’m doing.

But under that?
There’s a silence.
A heaviness.
A knowing.

Because I see it —
the emptiness behind the noise.
The fear under the ambition.
The puke under the polish.

And yeah, some days it feels like drowning.
Like trying to breathe through wet cement.

But it’s not because I’m broken.

It’s because I’m awake.

And maybe I’m just not strong enough —
or numb enough —
to ignore it the way you can.

That’s not weakness.
That’s not failure.
That’s not a chemical imbalance that needs to be sanded down until I’m palatable again.

That’s what it means to be human in a world that rewards denial.

You want to know what’s really broken?

Smiling through dead eyes because your boss might notice.
Posting your morning routine while your marriage is falling apart.
“Gratitude journaling” your way out of existential terror.
Buying throw pillows to feel something.

I don’t need a cure for this.

I need space.
I need silence.
I need the world to stop pretending that the people who feel the most are the ones who need fixing.

Maybe I’m not the one who’s sick.
Maybe I’m just one of the few left who hasn’t figured out how to fake being well.

You want a happy ending?
Go watch a commercial.
This is the truth.
Take it or leave it.