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These stars all struggled with depression.

Not too long ago, people didn’t really understand depression. A lot of well-intentioned people still thought of it as something someone could just will themselves out of. They thought depression was just feeling sad about stuff, and that people needed to just get over it, whatever it was. Over the last few years, unfortunately, there have been enough high profile cases of depression that have caused people to realize that it is a real, clinical condition.

Several high profile stories of celebrities suffering from depression hit the news, and not all of them had happy endings. While these stories were tragic, they helped people realize the seriousness of the condition. Many people believe that celebrities live charmed lives, but they’re not immune to medical problems.

Often times, people who have to deal with issues like depression end up making the most interesting art. The thing that makes them interesting is also the thing that hurts them the most. Here are 10 celebrities that you might not realize have suffered from depression.

Your life just doesn’t feel RIGHT.

I haven’t met anyone in my life who, at one time or another, has NOT experienced depression.

I’m not talking about experiencing overwhelming sadness or excessive crying into a puddle of helplessness.

I’m talking about the constant feeling of being numb.

This overwhelming numb feeling is a result of being disconnected from your vision. This is the true expression (in everyday living) of the big plan for your life. Life just doesn’t feel RIGHT when you’re NOT living your vision.

Let’s face it, when you’re connected to your vision you feel at ease with what you’re doing and where you’re going in your life and there’s no discomfort or feeling of being unsettled. Nothing is missing and your life has solid footing.

Isn’t this the complete opposite of when you’re feeling so numb? When you’re numb you probably don’t even feel your two feet on the ground!

Here are 6 hidden signs that you’re disconnected from your vision and your depression is really, REALLY real.

1. You don’t realize you have a purpose and life vision.

2. You feel as though you’ve been trained to do what others want, and that you’ve gradually lost touch with your dreams.

3. You feel generally unaware, and operate mostly on a subconscious level, as though you’re sleepwalking through life.

4. You feel numbed by stress, as though you function like a robot and at only the most rudimentary of levels.

5. You lack self-prioritization and don’t put yourself first — even though you’re the center of your “YOU-niverse.”

6. You’re afraid to dream BIG — or feel it is safer for you to dream small — because you believe just don’t deserve more.

The biggest sign that you’re REALLY depressed and disconnected is that you feel numb to your own emotions.

You wake up in the morning without a purpose and sense of direction, so you naturally want to go back to bed again. Days are long and filled with annoying obstacles that need to be faced. You find yourself grasping onto anything that can get you through the day. As the day progresses, you lose ground, and your self-esteem, self-worth and inner confidence get uprooted.

What’s worse is that you lose your innate ability to dream.

The answer is not a quick fix through the consumption of drugs, alcohol or cigarettes.

People need support to reconnect with their “inner dreamer” — the part of us that knows anything is possible, and that we can create anything we want in our life. People need support to reconnect with their capacity to create the experiences they have in their life.

The unconcealed solution is to take initiative and responsibility for your outcomes by seeking to create what you REALLY want in your life and make clear choices every day.

You MUST choose to live your vision!

Here are some recommendations to help you connect to your vision and ease your feelings of depression:

• Be proactive: Don’t habitually wait for things to happen.
• Be positive: Always anticipate success.
• Assume abundance: Believe there will always be plenty of opportunities and resources.
• Be creative: Seek new ideas and opportunities beyond the immediate past and present.
• Be assertive: Ask for what you want, and say “no” to what you don’t want.
• Take risks: Accept rejection and failure as part of life, and don’t take it personally.
• Be goal oriented: Clearly define and vigorously pursue your goals.

Get the support you need to succeed.

Be bold, be brilliant, and be REAL.

You’ve got this!

Depression can come in many different forms and all of them are painful.

We all know someone who is suffering from some kind of depression: our friends, familymembers and even ourselves.

Depression can come in many different forms and have many different triggers. There can sometimes be a lack of understanding when it comes to depression, as if someone suffering should just be able to pull it together. The truth is that those people dealing with depression need our support and caring as much, if not more, than anyone.

While depression can be sadness, that’s not all there is to it, and it doesn’t just come from having a bad day. Other things like genetics, abuse, medications, and major life events all have the potential to trigger a depressive episode.

In an article on Medical Daily, writer Ali Venosa looks at six different types of depression and how anybody dealing with one of them needs help and understanding.

1. Major Depressive Disorder/Clinical Depression

This is the most well known of the depressions. Symptoms can include loss of energy or fatigue, feelings of worthlessness or guilt (almost every day), impaired concentration, not being able to sleep or sleeping too much, not being interested in the things you used to enjoy, restlessness or feelings of being slowed down, weight loss or weight gain, and recurring thoughts of death or suicide. Patients speak of the all-consuming quality of this type of depression.

2. Persistent Depressive Disorder/Dysthymia

This form of depression happens when depressive symptoms become chronic. Symptoms include loss of interest in daily activities, sadness, emptiness, hopelessness, tiredness, lack of energy, low self-esteem, trouble concentrating and/or trouble making decisions, irritability, excessive anger, decreased activity, avoidance of social activities, feelings of guilt, poor appetite or overeating, and sleep problems. While symptoms are very similar to major depressive disorder, they may be less severe or last longer.

3. Bipolar Disorder/Manic Depressive Disorder

Bipolar disorder causes serious shifts in mood, energy, thinking and behavior from the highs of mania to the lows of depression. Some bipolar disorder patients don’t even notice their symptoms until a depressive episode happens and can be misdiagnosed as having major depressive disorder.

Some of the symptoms during a depressive episode include intense sadness, withdrawal from the world, no interest in things you once enjoyed, tiredness, lack of energy, lack of appetite or overeating, slow talking, lack of memory and ability to focus, poor decision-making skills, and interest in death and suicide.

4. Psychotic Depression/Depressive Psychosis

This type of depression is a combination of depression with psychotic symptoms. Symptoms include feelings of sadness, hopelessness, guilt, irritability, changes in eating, sleeping and energy levels, delusions, hallucinations, and paranoia.

The psychotic symptoms usually take on a depressive theme. For example, if the patient is hearing voices, the voices will say things like they’re worthless or they have no reason to be alive. These negative delusions can be especially dangerous and lead to suicide.

5. Postpartum Depression

This type of depression affects about 15 percent of women who give birth and manifests within four weeks of depression. Postpartum has many of the same symptoms of some of the other types of depression, including a change in appetite, sleeplessness or sleeping more than normal, sadness, difficulty concentrating, extreme fatigue, mood swings, thoughts of death, and anxiety.

There are also some additional symptoms: extreme concern and worry or lack of feelings for the baby, anger towards the baby, their partner or other family members, fear of harming the baby, excessive crying, and making frequent calls to the pediatrician with an inability to be reassured.

6. Seasonal Affective Disorder/SAD

SAD is a mood disorder associated with depression and related to seasonal variations of light.SAD affects half a million people every winter between September and April, peaking in December, January and February.

Symptoms can include feelings of guilt, hopelessness, despair, apathy and loss of self-esteem, inability to tolerate stress, mood extremes, sleep problems, feelings of fatigue and inability to carry out normal routine, avoidance of social contact, loss of interest in physical contact and overeating.

A diagnosis of SAD can be made after three consecutive winters of symptoms, especially if they’re followed by complete remission of symptoms in the spring and summer months.

If you are experiencing some of these symptoms, please seek medical attention and know that your life is valuable and people care about you. You’re not alone.

Veterans with PTSD are more likely to be diagnosed, but our suffering is just as valid.

By Summer Krafft

Tom Daley, the 22-year old British Rio Olympics hopeful and 2012 Olympic bronze medalist, came out publicly several days ago about suffering Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after a dive gone wrong when he was distracted by a camera flash at the London Olympics.

Every time I share with someone who doesn’t know me well that I, too, have PTSD, they respond by asking, “Isn’t that for Veterans?”

What I’ve found is that most people want invisible illnesses to stay silent.

It is true that many Veterans have PTSD. In America, 11-20% of Iraqi Veterans have PTSD in a given year and 12% of Veterans from Desert Storm suffer from it as well. In the most recent study, in the 1980s, 15% of Vietnam Veterans still live with the condition.

Combat exposure is one of the most common causes of PTSD in men, but so is rape, childhood neglect, and childhood physical abuse. For women, the most common causes are rape, sexual molestation, physical attack, being threatened with a weapon, and childhood physical abuse.

So, like Tom Daley exhibits, clearly it is not just Veterans who are likely to suffer from PTSD, though their statistics are high. Does this invalidate the traumas non-Veterans endure?

The assumption that only war survivors suffer from the condition largely ignores the existence of Complex PTSD, which occurs in people exposed to prolonged trauma, most commonly children under the age of 7 who are abused by their primary caretaker. This abuse can be physical, sexual, or psychological, and all of these are processed by the brain the same way, therefore having nearly identical effects on the body.

Living with Complex PTSD is no different chemically than it would be in a Veteran returning from war with the condition. However, Complex PTSD is often misdiagnosed as Borderline Personality Disorder or Dissociative Disorder. And it’s true, we dissociate. But that’s not the whole story.

Not everyone exposed to trauma walks out of it with PTSD. Roughly 60% of men in America will endure a trauma in their lifetimes, and 50% of women, but not all of those traumas result in the condition. Of those percentages in traumas, 7-8% will develop PTSD. Although, despite the higher percentage of exposure, men are only half as like to develop PTSD as women are.

The reality is that all trauma affects the brain and the body of the survivor nearly the same.Some specific triggers are determined by the traumatizing event, but they all fall within a slightly broader category.

My mother and I are both in treatment for PTSD. When she was 10 years old, she was shot in the heart in a “freak accident” in her backyard. She drops into the fetal position whenever she hears a loud noise, much like a soldier might. She can barely breathe some days. Even in her suffering, she has to remind me to breathe whenever I am brought back to a moment with my father.

In the trauma sphere, we call these flashbacks. Some nights I wake up screaming. Many women I know are haunted by the day or night their bodies were broken into. Some can’t bear to speak about it. I also know men whose parents beat them, and now they find it nearly impossible to trust people. We all forgot how to breathe at some point. None of these are unusual symptoms of PTSD.

However, sometimes symptoms don’t surface until months or even years after the trauma. I developed PTSD when I was between 4 and 5, but was not accurately diagnosed until I was 20 years old. I have lived most of my life without language for what I’ve gone through.

Whenever someone asks me, “Isn’t PTSD for Vets?” I take a deep breath and slowly begin to offer an expanded definition of trauma, and that no one’s survival through this disorder should be belittled or discounted. Veterans with PTSD are more likely to be diagnosed and receive treatment, but our suffering is just as valid. Our suffering is likely very much the same.

You can’t know someone’s story by looking at them. Sometimes the best offering you can make a survivor of trauma is listening when they finally have the words. I hope the world is listening compassionately to Tom Daley.

Summer Krafft is a writer, playwright, performer, community arts organizer, and teaching artist located in California’s Central Valley. Her other work can be seen in NAILED Magazine, The Manifest-Station, and Penumbra. Her work tends to deal with themes of love, rage, forgiveness, and the body.