I’m Liz Smith and I'm the new author on the Coping with Depression blog. I have depression, I’m 33, and I live in Leeds, a city in the north of England. It wasn't until my mid-20s that I was officially diagnosed with depression, but it was clear I was suffering well before then. Most of the time, I felt pretty desolate – lonely, misunderstood, and like there was nowhere I fit in. At university, everyone else seemed to be having a great time, but being around lots of confident, able people only magnified my insecurities.

It’s hard for me to believe, but my time writing for the Coping with Depression blog has come to an end. I started this journey because I believed that we can help one another by sharing our stories and our experiences about depression. Today, I’m more convinced of that than ever.

After just over a year of blogging for HealthyPlace, it's time for me to move on from co-writing Coping With Depression. I've written dozens of blog posts, spoken on the HealthyPlace YouTube channel, and had hundreds of conversations with you. With each post I've written, I've grown as a writer and survivor of depression.

Seeing the World Through the Eyes of Depression For as long as I can remember, I've seen myself and the world around me a little differently than the average person. There was a lot of negativity and fear inside me. It wasn't until my early 20s that I realized that anxiety and depression were a big part of this type of warped perspective. At the age of 28, I was diagnosed with bipolar 1 disorder. For years I fought my diagnosis, not believing that it could apply to me.

I can't believe it's been a year since I started writing the Coping with Depression blog for HealthyPlace.com. I've written over fifty blogs and recorded a dozen videos for the HealthyPlace YouTube channel. It's been a journey, and I thank you for riding along with me, but it's time to say so long.

My name is Erin, I’m 29-years-old, and depression is as much a part of me as my bones and organs. I’ve felt depressed my entire life, but until I finally reached out for help at the age of sixteen, I didn’t realize that I had an illness at all. I thought life was just extremely painful but that I felt pain deeper than most. I felt like I was terrible at coping with things everyone else found to be so easy. I felt bad and wrong and hopeless.

Depression Won’t Define Me Back some thirty-five years ago when I was a child, the word depression wasn’t readily used as a diagnosis, rather, it was used to describe a point-in-time state of being. "I’m depressed because I have no friends." While this use of the word is obviously still valid, depression, in all its varied forms, has come to mean so much more. Back in those days, we’d call it a bout-of-the-blues or feeling down-and-out to which our mothers would emphatically state, "snap out of it… stop feeling sorry for yourself!" My Mom didn’t realize (though, who could blame her) that this prolonged, repetitive, inescapable, inexplicable "mood" that plagued me was actually an illness.

Hi, my name is Amie Merz and I'm glad to be teaming up with Jack Smith on this blog and sharing my thoughts, knowledge and experience on coping with depression. I am a counselor in private practice (my credentials: MA, LPC, NCC, CASAC, ICAADC, SAP) in a rural area south of St. Louis, MO. in the United States. I have worked in the mental health field since 1991, with all age groups, income levels, issues and dynamics. I have learned that mental illness does not discriminate; so many people have been affected by it. My hope is that the negative stigma of getting help can continue to fade away so we can help more people feel better.

Hi, my name is Jack, and I suffer from depression. I was first diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder about seven years ago, but I’ve been waging war on this brain disease for a long time. And it is a disease. It is not a character flaw. It is not an excuse for my shortcomings. It is not a spiritual defect. It is not a case of the occasional blues. It is real, and it is painful — physically painful. It is maddening and it can be gut wrenching. It is an illness just as diabetes is an illness. I call it a war because war is hell, and so is clinical depression.