I suffered from depression long before I knew how to name it. I smiled through difficult moments—through hurt and insult—not out of resilience, but numbness. I believed everyone was kind, unaware that I was burying my own pain deep within my mind for years.
People often said, “You are so strong. You smile so much. You can’t be depressed.” When I spoke of my struggle, a recent smile was offered as proof that it wasn’t real. Only recently did I understand that I had been performing strength my entire life. I smiled when I didn’t want to. I smiled when I was wounded. I smiled because feeling itself had shut down.
I am still strong—not because I avoided depression, but because I am surviving it. Getting ill is not the hardest part; survival is. Mental illness is deeply invisible and misunderstood, yet it is not the only unseen pain. In this series, I explore invisible suffering—human and beyond—giving form to what is often ignored.
Mental illness is a sealed wound—unseen, yet bleeding inward so deeply that the body fills with silent blood.
