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"But it is you. This is you," he insisted.
What he really meant was "being depressed is your personality." He said he needed someone who was stable, more "happy-go-lucky," and argued that depression made me neither of these.
"It's not me though," I tried to explain. "I'm sick when I go through an episode." What I really wanted to say was, "I am more than just depressed." Regardless, he wasn't convinced and broke up with me shortly after, leaving my mangled heart behind.
Earlier that summer I had decreased my antidepressant medication, a plan that backfired dramatically, sending me into a depressive episode – my fourth. The medication decrease along with other life stresses, such as preparing to begin a master's program, set the stage for disaster.
Two weeks after we broke up I asked if we could meet. I needed to understand why it didn't work out. I didn't buy his excuse that our personalities were mismatched, because our differences seemed to work well together without much effort up until then.
I felt frustrated and hurt – nothing out of the ordinary for an unexpected breakup – but I couldn't understand why it left me so perplexed.
Eventually, he admitted what I'd been most dreading: Someone whom I cared deeply for confirmed that my depression was too much to handle, and he didn't want to deal with it.
As I moved through the breakup process, I unconsciously absorbed his opinion. In doing so, I internalized a perception of myself as depressed and nothing more. "Nobody will ever love me, because I'm a mess. I'm pathetic. I'm weak," I thought.
We live in a society that compels us to tuck away mental illness in the attics of our minds lest we be discovered as "crazy." Mental illness is often treated as a personality flaw, not a medical condition. This stigma makes mental illness feel like some sort of negative emotional baggage that must be hidden from potential partners until they break through our threshold of trust. It makes mental illness a dirty secret, revealed only in the hope that your partner will still accept you and remember your other qualities.
But why is it a dirty secret? Why have I felt shame in telling new partners about my illness? I feared they would forget the rest of my personality and only see me as a depressive two-dimensional caricature of myself. I feared they would see me as weak and incapable of offering support in times of need.
Society seems doubtful of our ability to love during times of struggle. You often hear advice that you can't love someone unless you fully love yourself, but what if you're constantly questioning your self-worth? Does that make you any less capable of loving someone deeply and unconditionally?
I don't even like myself when I'm sick, but that doesn't abate my love for a partner. I don't question my love for the people I care about, not even when I question my love for myself. It is this love that has kept me alive in my darkest moments – moments when the self-hatred was so intoxicating and negative voices so loud that I didn't see any point in continuing.
I realize now that my own insecurities coloured how I saw the ending of this latest relationship. I believed that my illness was the sole reason why he gave up on us even though we'd spent hot summer evenings lounging on my balcony daydreaming about children and a future together. When he left, I assumed that it reflected my own inability to love and be loved.
"Maybe it's just a reflection of his own weakness," a friend suggested. "It doesn't mean that you're unbearable or impossible. It just means that he isn't strong enough to support another person right now," he said gently.
Maybe it was egotistical to centre the breakup on my illness. What is important are the remnants left behind after I sifted through the shards and patched my own pieces back together. I believed him when he said I was weak and nothing but depressed. Learning to reject this opinion gave me strength and showed me that I am capable of loving and being loved despite my illness.
And life carries on. The first year of my master's program wrapped up, and I started seeing someone new.
As I reflected on lingering feelings of self-doubt, the same friend reminded me of the new community I had helped build since the breakup. "Look at all of this around you," he said, and I became more aware of all the love that surrounded me. I realized I am capable of loving and being loved.
I often have to tell myself that I am more than my mental illness, and it gets easier each day as I surmount new challenges. I have to remind myself that overcoming multiple depressive episodes is no small feat – that I am strong and nobody can take that resiliency away from me.
Now I see that there is strength in sharing your love with others – especially when your own self-love wavers – even if they may not be strong enough to carry it.
Sharing this love, even through challenges such as mental illness, can help us reframe how we look at so-called "emotional baggage." Rather than seeing it as a negative, we should acknowledge the lessons such baggage can bring as it equips us with tools for navigating life – and that's definitely a positive.
Undoubtedly, a major depressive disorder is a debilitating illness, but it doesn't negate the inherent human act of loving. Loving through depression is not impossible. Depression does not stunt a person's ability to love fully, unconditionally and fiercely.
Emily Gwun-Shun Lennon lives in Edmonton.