From someone who was there where you are now, and who wants you to leave, just like I did.

You are experiencing an episode of depression. I know because I have been there and may be back sometime. Well, I want to take advantage of this moment when I am here outside to write you this letter based on the self that has been there and this other that one day may return.

I don't intend to help you. I just want to keep you company for a few moments, like a stranger who sits next to you on a public bench, recognizes your loneliness and starts a conversation, trying to respect your distress and taking care not to disturb the precarious security of your isolation.

Perhaps, while I speak or write, you will continue to feel a sadness, discouragement and emptiness that accompany you too much, only that all this does not prevent you from working, taking care of life and pretending that everything is fine when the occasion requires. Or maybe you are paralyzed and alone, doubting that you can ever really get out of the hole.

I want to be frank with you, because I know that in this condition we have little patience for small talk. Depression can even lead to suicide. In other cases, it can be a long and severe sentence, years and years of intellectual, emotional and functional imprisonment. Life is pouring down the drain of time.

I think it's good to face it. It is necessary to recognize the dimension of this obstacle. First, to realize that this condition requires our immediate and continued attention and care. Then, to be sure that those who, because they have not experienced it, and because they are poorly informed, underestimate or stigmatize depression are wrong. With this, they contribute to create difficulties to adequately face a worldwide public health problem. They also contribute to aggravate the suffering of those close to you. I had my doubts when I was there where you are, but today it is quite clear to me: depression is not a sign of weakness. Rather, it can be an indication of sensitivity and intelligence (although many sensitive and intelligent people do not suffer from it, fortunately). It is not a reason for guilt, but a disease that can and should be treated.

In some cases, the anguish is so intense as to make death seem like a relief. It was like that for me at times. Out here, it's easy to see how the horizon gets darker through the lens of chronic sadness. With a clear eye, alternative landscapes, which have always existed, become clearer.

Anyway, we don't have much time. Life is a temporary projection, said one thinker; like a movie, with a beginning, middle and end. Therefore, it is better to do the best possible in the time we have. Even with all the limitations, even in the midst of depression.

On a day of melancholy it is possible to do someone good. You can do yourself good, for example, by having a good meal, or by exercising. You can hear someone who needs to vent. Make a compliment, encourage. So it is better to take a chance and try to do something meaningful, even if it is a seemingly tiny step. One hour we left that hole and started to have good moments in the time that we have left, who knows, we may even make a positive difference in the lives of other people ... And the fact is that there are great chances of that happening.

Depression can consume life, but it can also pass. I went through several depressive episodes since I was a teenager, and the most recent one lasted about eight months. I spent whole days, from sunrise to sunset, sleeping or looking at the ceiling. I stopped working. I was tortured without relent by my thoughts. I felt alone and misunderstood in my personal hell. I tried to hold on, I tried to help myself, I got help. And one day I saw that I had overcome the period of depression.

I'm not deluding myself, I know I can slip back. After countless hours of study, reflection, conversation and psychotherapy, I can't say exactly what it is, I have vague ideas of its causes and I don't have the formula for a cure. But I know the place where she imprisons us. I was there where you are, and I brought something valuable with me: the experience of going out. It is little, I admit, but what I have most important to tell you is what I could not see inside: you can leave.

It makes sense to me to think of depression as a spell or a nightmare. A horror movie. A bad drunk, a kidney stone. It is terrible, but an hour ends (I don't say it will end on its own; it is more likely to require a conscious, prolonged and considerable effort, in most cases).

Also, as with all of these examples, getting out of depression made it very clear to me that I am not what I feel when I am depressed. Those thoughts, emotions and behaviors are manifestations of a depressed body and mind; they are not my essence. The mind houses and manifests other identities. One may be depressed, but one is never depressed, no matter how long that state is.

I can give you a simple example: just remember a period in your life when you were not in depression. She arrives and she goes. I hope that you find other people who are free, that you stop to listen to them, and that you decide to believe that. I hope you remember that when you are in the heart of darkness. You can leave.

I have something else to tell you frankly. Nobody will save you but yourself. This is also not an absolute truth, I know, just another painful and enriching lesson from my own experience. By this, I do not mean that we do not need help and that it is not important to have the understanding, patience and generosity of family, friends and doctors. I could not have done it without them and I am eternally grateful to have been able to receive their help. What I mean is that all the support from this network of people, and even the medications, can help you to some extent. From that point, you have to walk alone.

This point is where you decide to help yourself. It is not a big and unique decision. There are many small daily choices: opening up with a friend, asking for help, looking for a psychologist or psychiatrist, getting out of bed, taking a walk, spending time with those who are willing to support you, exercising your body, avoiding alcohol and other drugs with a depressive effect (I am referring here to the case of the depressed person), to seek things that make your eyes shine, to continue on the endless path of giving meaning to life. Only you can do these things. To plunge into the dark of depression is to face the fact that, deep down, we are alone. Our portion of life's inevitable suffering we experience alone. We alone can choose to learn to deal with it, and we can seek the means and help we need to do so.

Paradoxically, depression shows us that we are not alone. It forced me to open up and expose my vulnerability to a larger number of people, sometimes not even close, either to ask for help or because I just couldn't hide the difficulty I was going through. This made me deepen some friendships in a way that would not have been possible outside this context. It also made me start friendships, with greater confidence and closeness than relationships used to have in the beginning. The healing process as a whole was a valuable lesson in interdependence, showing how my well-being depends on the quality of my relationships - with myself, with others, with the environment - on my insertion in networks of trust and mutual help, of the exchange of affection. They are gifts that I received from depression.

I want to share with you something more about this late night trip (Céline's novel does not expressly deal with depression, but it is related to what I am going to say, in a way). At the end of that trip, I found nothing. There is nothing but suffering. For a while during this foray into the shadows, I hoped to make discoveries about the meaning of existence, I believed that my silent rebellion against ordinary life would finally allow me to find an axis of meaning. But not. Nothing. I did have insights and epiphanies, revised habits and became more aware of some factors of well-being and suffering. But the answer to my deepest existential inquiries was not in that dark cell.

I understood that it would not be abandoning me that I would redeem myself.

Perhaps depression, a chronic pain in the mind, is like the pain in the body, an alarm set off denouncing illness in our customary ways of interpreting and touching life. But medicine and prevention are not in pain. It is in everyday life, in the midst of my everyday chores and concerns, that I feel I have to find, or define, the directions of a meaningful existence.

Depression made me more sensitive to the relevance and urgency of this search, made it my zero priority. I have searched. There are many voices in the sea of ​​information and advice poured into our ears every day, and among them are true friends, health professionals and life teachers. And there are people like you and me, seeking to heal themselves from pathological normality. I hope you find them, that you let yourself be helped and that you help them. There is much to learn in order to overcome and prevent depression, and more broadly, to live better. For example, I got into the habit of reminding myself every day of the many favorable aspects of my life, as it is today.

It would have been a simple lesson, but I experienced the pain that being drifting in existence can bring and at least I know that the search for meaning depends on me. You are not alone on this trip. I wish you strength and luck. I wish that you can turn that suffering into freedom.