Bravo Katrina, I love your realization that you are not a victim of depression; you are a survivor of it. Funny, I think of my breast cancer as an incident, an episode that happened almost 4 years ago. Over. Until it isn’t. If that should happen.

But depression? I’ve always thought of it as my companion throughout my life. Steadfastly there, through thick and thin. Wanted or not.

Thinking about depression as episodes, incidents from my past might be a way for me to relearn my concept of mental illness and mental health.

Just like I survived breast cancer, I have survived depression countless times. And honestly? The episodes are further and further apart these days.

It would be wonderful to get to the point where I no longer say “I’ survived breast cancer, but I’ve survived depression,” but instead place it more firmly in the past and say, “ I survived depression.”