Depression is a word that gets thrown around far too easily.

"Oh, my favourite tv programme has just finished... I'm sooo depressed."

Or,

"He hasn't called, or texted me. I'm so depressed."

It's so easy to simply take yourself off to your local GP and claim that you're always miserable, and you can't sleep, and you've maybe entertained the idea of taking your own life once or twice and boom, you're given a prescription for anti-depressives, signed off from work for six weeks and officially labelled as being depressed.

Real depression is nothing like that.

When you suffer from real depression, the overwhelming darkness of your situation hovers over you like an intimidating fog. One day quietly slips into the next and before you know it, you haven't left your bed for two weeks. You don't cry anymore. Because there is nothing left to cry. All the moisture within your body has vanished, and although you feel like you need to cry, nothing comes out. You are simply existing from one day to the next.

I had never entertained the thought that I would ever face depression. Nothing about my life seemed to suggest I would. I had a wonderful relationship with my parents, had been brought up in a beautiful village and afforded a solid education that had culminated in my acceptance into UCL to study Medicine and I had my best friends, two people with whom I was completely and utterly besotted with. Superficially, I knew I had nothing to complain about. I had inherited my mothers thick honey blonde hair, my fathers piercing green eyes and high cheekbones and their combined metabolisms, that meant my stomach remained flat and my limbs long and elegant without much effort in a gym. Which isn't to say that I didn't exercise. I ran ten miles a day, seven days a week. I also rode a bike to and from my lectures which were situated about 8 miles away from our home.

But that's the thing about depression. It doesn't announce itself. It flies under the radar for as long as possible, leeching on to your every thought. It conjures up nightmares while you sleep and forces you to relive your worst moments. It whispers in your ear about your friends. It reminds you that neither of them have ever experienced anything like this. It laughs when they tell you that they, "know what you're going through", it makes you hate the people that you love the most even though they are trying their best to help you through the immeasurable pain but nothing, and nobody can help.

But here's the other thing about depression. It gets bored. It leaves you alone sometimes. Lifts the black cloud of hatred and sadness from your shoulders and lets you breathe. And those are the moments in which you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you will beat depression. You know that you are meant to be more than this. More than a shivering wreck of a human. You have things to accomplish, relationships to fix, a legacy to uphold and you force yourself out of bed. You stand and look at yourself in the mirror. You see the damage that depression has done. You look at the hollow circles beneath your eyes, the grey pallor of your skin, the sharp, pointy bones protruding from your hips. You realise that you can count your ribs. You know that you're sick. You know that depression isn't your friend. You look at the scrawl that is tattooed underneath your prominent collarbone and for the first time in a fortnight, since you dragged yourself home from meeting Sir Stuart Peach, you feel something other than a complete helplessness. Hope scoops you up in its arms and holds you tight. It strokes your hair and tells you that you will get through this. You will persevere. Your room is a disaster. It looks, ironically, like a bomb has hit it. Still, you pull on your running leggings, sports bra and the first top you can put your hands on. It's the Ramones vest.

I had never really entertained the people who believed that everything happened for a reason, or those who believed that the cosmos sent signs. But I knew that this was a sign. It was the biggest sign that I would ever receive.

Charlotte and Steve looked up at me wide eyed when I appeared in the doorway of the living room.

"You're going running?" Steve asked.

I strode into the living room and enveloped them in my arms.

"I'm sorry." I said. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Hey.." Charlotte said, pulling away from me and cupping my face in her hands. "You don't have to apologise for anything."

I looked into her deep green eyes and knew that she was telling me the truth. She kissed me on the forehead.

"If I was straight I would suggest we move this to the bedroom..."

It felt good to laugh. Really good. Like I had just learnt to walk all over again.

"So... you're back then?" Steve asked.

"Trying to be." I nodded, and pushed myself to my feet, before turning towards the door.

"Want some company?" Charlotte asked.

I held up my Iphone and my earbuds.

"We'll do dinner when you get home then." Steve said. "You're looking too thin. You need carbs. Lots of carbs."

I closed the living room door behind me and headed down the hall to the front door. Opening it, I was greeted with one of those beautiful September evenings where the sky looks like a Monet painting. Swirls of orange, pink and red filled the sky and the smell of Autumn hit me like a brick wall.

I didn't know what acceptance, the final stage of grief, was supposed to feel like, but as I closed my front door and set off down the familiar leafy street with The Ramones blasting in my ears, I knew that I was finally there.