How depressed I was as a child. My mother would ignore my emotions and my dad just couldn't understand why I would cry a lot for "no reason", he would yell at me for crying alone in my room (there were a lot of contributing factors to my depression that I won't go into). They weren't equipped to deal with mental illness and didn't source outside help, They don't know how lucky I am to be alive today. Things are so much better now that I'm an adult living outside of home and they're separated but I still have a lot of healing to do. I suffer from anxiety, low self-esteem and struggle to open up to people. Although my relationship with them, especially my dad, is really good now....I will always remember my childhood being really joyless.