A year ago I said that this isn’t me.

Today I know that it is.

I am that girl that takes medication once a day to make my life feel normal. Under my new-normal circumstances I would be avoiding caffeine, excercising at least four times a week for twenty minutes per time, and eating things that contain under 15 grams of sugar per serving. But like everyone knows, this semester has been spent juggling school and work, and the occasional fun activity. In December I’ll go back to my old regiment of making my body healthy so it works how its supposed to. Cymbalta is my drug and it helps me function. I am on it because I have to be, not because I want to be. Because depression is genetic in my family.

Call it what you will. Say that it doesn’t exist. Say it’s not an illness. It is though. I have it. It is my illness, and it is me, and there is my secret. But now it is not my secret anymore, because you’re reading this. And think what you want. Think that I’m crazy because I am in therapy and I have a psychiatrist. Think that you can’t deal being friends with me anymore. You didn’t notice the depression before, but now that you know that it’s there, does that change your opinion?

Today I went to ask a professor for a letter of recommendation. This professor knows about the depression. Fall of 2004 I failed two classes because another professor smiled sweetly and said, “I’m sorry for what you’re going through, but I’m afraid I can’t pass you.” She had documentation. I tried to keep up and she knew it. I kept one class and got a C+ in it. The C+ was my miracle for the semester. Med withdrawl was not an option because it would put me another semester behind. Spring 2005, I took another class with my C+ professor and got a B+ in her class. Obviously I was back to normal scholastically, able to go to class and write papers. Asking her for a letter, in my mind, should have been no problem, because she knew what was going on. She had all the documentation. She could see in the change in my grades that the semester before was a fluke, and that I am not a C+ student when it comes to literature.

I was wrong. Instead she said, “I think that you should look elsewhere for your recommendation. I would rather not write one because you got a C+ in my class.”

I reminded her what happened. She remembered. She told me to use her as a last resort because she could not write me a strong recommendation.

While I realize that this is her choice, I feel betrayed. She knew the situation, saw the improvement, and she won’t vouch for me.

Depression stole a year of my life. It could come back at anytime. But I am not going to let it define me. I am intelligent, and I want to go to graduate school. I have an illness that I had no control over. It is not my excuse, it is a fact, and now I am stable.

I fought to stay in school, I fought for my relationship, but most of all, I fought for myself. I am not going to let some ignorant woman stop me from getting into grad school because my body doesn’t work the way it is supposed to.

So there you go. I’m clinically depressed and I always will be. It’s a label, and it’s part of me, but it isn’t who I am. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean that I’m not going to make it.