I think this is going to make a lot of people uncomfortable and, for that, I'm sorry.

So this is a oneshot based largely on my own life. I know I've been really absent from my stories lately and I'm so sorry about that. I truly am. I've been going through a rough time lately and I couldn't find the motivation to write anything.

I'm hoping that this releases any repressed anger I've harbored through the years and allows me to jump back into writing. I'm sorry if this seems OOC, but it's mostly just me rambling on through Danny. Also, this is not edited because I'm afraid that if I go to edit it, I'll delete everything important and replace it with meaningless crap.

But, all the same, happy reading!

I stopped smiling.

That was the first checkpoint. It raised a red flag inside me, but I was to busy to do anything about it. Between fighting ghosts, avoiding bullies, not failing school, and balancing the rest of my life, my happiness was at the bottom of my list of worries.

You see, there are three phases of depression. Phase One, if you can call it that, is when you hate everyone around you. That's where I was when I stopped smiling, stopped laughing with my friends, and started this whole mess. Obviously, it was nothing I could control. It just happened. If I could go back to this moment, I would and I would reverse the whole damn thing. I don't exactly know how, but I would.

Jazz noticed it first. She noticed it before even I did. I always brushed it off as problems with Dash or something like that. She offered to go to Lancer for me, but I told her not to. I promised her I'd fix everything on my own. I told her it was nothing to worry about and that I was just tired and after a good night's sleep I'd be better because that's truly what I believed. And I never got that good night's sleep because I was always dealing with the ghosts that I couldn't ignore because of my part-ghostly obsession or all the studying I had to do for the test the next day I ultimately was going to fail. But I was okay with this because it was a routine and I needed routines in order to function properly and sort-of balance my life.

Sam noticed next. She was always too perceptive for her own good, and at this point I'd realized that sleep was not my problem. I was the problem. As she prodded, I blocked her out. It was too annoying, too irritating, to be examined under a microscope from my best friend at the same time everyone else was examining me. My parents, Vlad, Jazz, Mr. Lancer, those are just a few of the many people who knew I was hiding something. Something big.

All that stress from hiding Phantom, my "cooler alter ego" as Tucker so nicely put it, angered me. And I began lashing out. I started snapping at everyone, even Dash, which just added to the stress because I knew what I was doing was hurting people and I wanted to stop but why did everyone have to be so goddamn annoying all the time with their pesky questions?

Tucker noticed at the same time my mom noticed, but by that time it was too late. I was already too deep into phase one. Everyone who could be even slightly important to me was gone. I'd pushed them out and closed them off, erasing their goodness from my mind and sucking my happy memories associated with them into a black hole.

That was just Phase One.

Phase Two came shortly after that, and by that point it was already horribly apparent what direction I was going to. I knew full well my mental state was deteriorating as the stresses of my life snowballed until it was too big for me to handle. Even so, I still had the stubborn, independent attitude that got me through all these months of being Phantom. It was that stubborn independent attitude that kept me from reaching out for help before I even stepped one foot through the threshold of Phase Two.

Phase Two was even more dreadful than Phase One. It was like Phase One but on steroids. I mean, I was already completely miserable at that point, and now I had to deal with more of that crap?

You hate yourself in Phase Two. Like Phase One, it's a horribly slow and painful process, only you've stopped caring about fixing it because you suddenly have this tunnel vision on yourself, and I hated myself.

I hated how I'd always screw up during my ghost flights. I hated how my obsession prevented me from ignoring my ghost sense for one freaking night so I could get some sleep. I mean, as much as I hated to admit it, there were other competent ghost hunters. My mom, Valerie, and...actually that's about it...are just a few examples of some of the other ghost hunters in Amity Park who can actually catch ghosts.

But those were only the minor bits about myself I could stand to live without. I hated how my attitude prevented me from getting close to people, and I hated how I could count the amount of real friends I had on one hand. I hated how because I was scrawny little Fenturd, I was picked on by Dash and his incompetent crew of class A douchebags. I also hated how I couldn't do anything to stop them.

Amity Park-or half of it anyhow-looks to Danny Phantom to be a leader, a protector, an invisible ball of steel. What would they think if they knew who he really was? Would they still like him? Would they still think he was the cool, awesome dude they thought he was? Or would they turn their backs on him and leave him to be preyed by government agents, lonely old men with a vendetta, and his parents.

I wasn't good enough in my head. Not for anyone. Not even for myself. And I knew it.

As I began the shift from Phase Two to Phase Three I stopped talking. I couldn't really remember when this happened, but it did. My memory gets a little hazy at this point.

And as I progressively got worse. When I previously was good at hiding my emotions, in Phase Three it was all over. All my walls came tumbling down and I lacked the energy to put them back up. I drifted throughout my day, and it was at this point that the ghosts started noticing something was off. There was no witty banter when I fought them anymore. None. Zip. Nil. Nothing.

I just fought them and left, disappearing before my parents, the GiW, Valerie, or even Sam and Tucker could get there.

I stopped sleeping at this point too. I would just lie in bed in a state of existential hell, wondering if it was even worth it to stay in this world if there was obviously no need for me. I was a waste of space. Nothing. I had no friends at this point, no family I was close to, no one person I could talk to. I'd stopped visiting Frostbite, I hadn't heard from Wolfe or Dani for months, and Mr. Lancer just pretty much gave up on me. I was failing his class anyways. My effort had dropped from bad to worse, and there was no fixing it this time.

Although, that statement about Mr. Lancer wasn't exactly fair now that I think about it. He never really gave up on me, I just gave up on his class and avoided his help, and him for that manner, as much as I could.

Phase Three happened, but we don't like to talk about the rest of Phase Three. Part of me is kind of glad I can't remember anything past the beginning of it.

And now we come to the present day. I got better for a while, a couple of years actually. My grades came back up, I got close with Sam and Tucker again, and I got closer with my parents and sister. The ghost hunting got easier and fun again when I started accepting help, and I began to get interested in other hobbies like video games and hanging out with friends. I even started making other friends at school and expanding my connections with my peers.

That was, until recently. I recognized the first Phase almost immediately, but brushed it off as nothing. I was past that, wasn't I?

But then Phase Two hit. I was right back where I was before.

I wanted to stop it, to end this before it started, but I was already spiraling out of control. I was already falling into the black abyss filled with seas of blackness and depression and sadness and anger. I was already drowning in my own mind as the tunnel vision suffocated my line of vision, shifting my perception from what I wanted to notice to what my existential hell wanted to see.

The same everyday images of school and home and classmates twisted from regular snapshots to a world of alienation. It was as if I was looking in through a bulletproof glass wall. No matter how much I pounded and kicked, I couldn't get the damn glass to shatter. This Berlin Wall refused to come down.

I tried, I tried so hard. I spent hours upon hours researching on Google and Youtube how to find happiness again, and followed all their instructions. I tried talking to people, being athletic, and just doing things that I'd previously enjoyed. Nothing worked.

I was trying to claw my way out of the freaking Mariana Trench. True, my stubborn attitude wouldn't allow me to just give up, but some days it felt like I should. Some days I felt like just melting into a puddle of defeat and giving into this maddening world my neurotransmitters had created for my senses to feast upon. Some days it felt like I should submit to my destiny in which I disintegrate into a pile of dust, only to be picked up by the winds of life and blown around for anyone to wave off.

Some days it felt like I was nothing and I should accept that and move on.

I hated it.