This is the first time I have ever written this down, ever shared my whole story. There are a few reasons why but the biggest of those is the stigma. We live in a society that is full of people who think they are experts on mental illness. They are people who have never suffered, never battled the black dog. People who have never sat in a living room while their family live and felt totally and absolutely empty. Dead inside, yet still breathing. These people, these experts, are the very ones that spread the lie, give the stigma its power. Some of them don't even realise they do it, such is the insidious and creeping nature of this untruth. Yet, it is this attitude that keeps so many in chains, unable to break the strangle hold that threatens to throttle them to death. It is time that those who suffer in silence are given a voice, it is time that I tell you what I have experienced and make myself vulnerable. There is an answer, if not a cure, and there is a way you get to live again. But first you have to admit you have a problem, a serious one.
