Your Feelings Are Valid

I was diagnosed with ADHD

The other side of the coin is Depression

All my family has ever known me as was happy-go-lucky

With a painful attention span and bouncing grades

It's only recent I've mentioned depression

They've seen it in the way I move so slowly

Even an elderly couple can walk down to the other side of the store

Before I can even get two cucumbers bagged and in the cart

Despite all the symptoms and tell tales

Of all the scarred tissues and red eyes

Of all the white lies and sleepless nights

I mention depression, and in two lies one truth,

they get the truth wrong

I was diagnosed with ADHD

while depression lingered underneath

scratching at the surface of my mind

until enough was enough

materializing into words but falling on death ears

All my parents know is that ADHD causes a lack of focus,

or hyperfocus until everything is blinded by one thing

falling and washing away with the tides

Only one survivor and my teachers tell me I'm not trying hard enough

I had bullies growing up

I had strict parents growing up

I was tired of growing up

I didn't want to grow up

I couldn't see myself past 12, then 16, then 18, then 20

I gave up on counting the years when they didn't end

ADHD and depression doesn't end

It changes me profoundly

Whoever I was before is dead

They don't understand

My parents still search for that little girl

Who was all smiles

She was buried by the mental illness

To them, this seems impossible

That this could never happen to me

So I crack a little more inside

I'm still figuring myself out

The visits to the psychiatrist never helped

Despite this, I cry and sleep with my kitten in my arms

The purring of my dear pet eases my mind

The feeling of something alive cures my apathy

For only a second, but a second is enough to change my mind

Thinking maybe I want to see the sun rise tomorrow