Photo taken by contributor Carrie Hilgert, a 36-year-old photographer and portrait artist from Northeast Kansas. After venturing into digital photography, she became interested in documenting her life with self portraits. This became particularly helpful when her life started to fall apart due to depression. All her other creative outlets left her, but she could always process her very dark feelings with self portraits. While she is doing much better now, she maintains compassion for those going through these hard things and hopes that her photography can give an honest insight into something that makes most people feel very isolated and alone.

About this photo: “While my depression is mostly better, there are times, like during pms, that it likes to pay me a visit.

I know when it comes because suddenly I’m so sad I want to curl up in my blanket and cry about nothing.

I know when it comes because putting on my clothes for work becomes more difficult than lifting 50 lb bags of concrete after that point where your arms are too weak to lift anything else

I know when it comes because I wake up wondering if I have a legitimate excuse for not showing up to work. Is mentally unstable acceptable? Methinks not.

It could lift at any time. Experience has taught me this. But in this moment its threatening my happiness and there’s nothing I can do but wait and fight another bloody battle of the mind.”

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