Picture this.

An estimated 1 in 10 adults suffer from depression. That means there are at least 31 million people in the United States who feel lost. Who feel hopeless – who feel like the world would be a better place without them and you were one of those people.

You wore a mask in front of your friends and family. That part was easy. You had been hiding your passion from them all your life; you could hide your depression too. Nobody at work could see how much you were hurting, but when you got home you lay in bed and you cried. You thought about downing an entire bottle of aspirin, but you were afraid of what people would say if you survived. You stood on the edge of your bathtub with one end of a belt looped around your neck and the other fastened to the metal rod of your shower curtain while you weighed the pros and cons of suicide. You spent hours surfing the Internet, visiting forums, looking for a way to save yourself. You even went so far as to post questions anonymously, pleading for help.

Then you got the piece of advice that you believed you were searching for – from Reddit of all places, a website famous for stupid cat pictures and bastardizing the word meme. It came in the form of a comment in a thread you made about feeling suicidal. You didn’t see the commenter’s username, in fact, you were so excited after reading their advice that you closed your browser’s window before checking where it came from. It didn’t matter who they were in real life anyways, as far as you were concerned those words were sent straight to you from your guardian angel, watching over from heaven.

Try finding a creative outlet, your web-surfing savior said. I picked up painting as a means to channel my depression. Whenever I’m feeling down, I grab a brush and get to work. It helps to serve as a fantastic distraction.

So picture this.