Being aware of my triggers doesn't actually necessarily equate to me being able to stop it. I would like to think that knowing—okay, it's a gray day out and I just cried three times, let me stop and not allow myself to be depressed. I wish that would be something that every person with depression could do but it doesn't, unfortunately, work like that. So even with the knowledge and experience of my triggers, I don't know how to stop my depression. Sometimes being aware of the triggers—I mean does help, my depression will only last three days instead of three months, but I don't really think that there's any one thing that I've ever done that could stop it in its tracks. There's things to make it easier, there's ways that I've broken out of it faster, but there's never been a way to just stop it.

Sometimes the only way to ease those difficult times are to go through the difficult times. I have to remind myself, when they do occur, that they end. The last time or two that I felt that way, the first thing I did was told a friend. Rather than just jumping right into what I wanted to do, I went and I reached out to a friend, which was really effective because instead of sitting in my own bed, I would sit on my friend's couch. We would find things to do to keep me distracted and even though I still sat in bed and stared at the wall for half the day, I was spending half the day not by myself, not being completely consumed.

For the most part, I just have to keep reminding myself, "This is going to end." It might take two weeks, it might take a month, it might take a year, but I've been on the other side of being depressed before so I know I’ll get there again. It's just a matter of reminding myself, "Just one step at a time. You—just get through today."