At 2:30 this morning I woke up angry. In fact, I was well beyond angry: I was livid. I was furious. I was “seeing red.”

I was angry because I was up—because trucks and construction behind my house woke me up. I was angry because my daughter was up. I was angry because, well, that’s been my M.O. as of late.

The rage has been blinding.

After nearly 90 minutes of tossing and turning, of “requests for water” and trips to the bathroom, I finally broke. I walked out of my bedroom, slammed my bare hand into the wall, and walked back as if nothing had happened.

I pretended I was OK. That everything was OK.

But it wasn’t. I’m not. And I haven’t been for quite some time.

The truth is things have been difficult lately. My depression has come to a head, and I have found myself breaking more. I have found myself shutting down more. I have found myself withdrawing more.

Sure, I write about depression all the time, but when I am in the grips of it, something changes. I change, and all the words I write—all the “wisdom” I share—means nothing. I am not as brave as my online persona claims to be. I am not as strong as I appear, and I rarely take my own advice.

And, as such, I feel duplicitous and fake. I feel like a fraud. Because no matter what I would tell you to do or have told you to do, today I don’t believe it. Today I don’t believe I matter. Today I don’t feel like I am enough. (And I’ve felt this way for quite some time.)

But that’s because depression is dark and insidious. Depression is isolating and paralyzing. Depression is a fickle f**king bitch.

So why share this with you at all? Sympathy? Empathy? Pity?

No. I don’t want any of that. (I never have, and I never will.) Instead, I share this in the name of transparency and honesty. In the name of vulnerability. And in the name of this disease. Because THIS is what depression looks like. THIS is what depression feels like. THIS is who I become when I am sick and broken—and when I let my depression swallow me.

So I am fighting back. I am kicking and screaming. I am refusing to sink down and, instead, I am blindly swimming against the current—with weights tied to my ankles and a fiery pain in my chest.

You see, I am only “fraudulent” if I keep silent. If I go on lying. If I pretend I am OK.

I am only as sick as my secrets.

So today I admit it: I am struggling. Really struggling. I don’t know up from down, left from right. I don’t know how to feel better…or if I can. All I do know is how to fight. How to reach out. How to ask for help.

And today, I suppose, that will have to be enough.

This post was originally published on Sunshine Spoils Milk.