In his diary, Xu Que recorded how he cured his depression on his own.

The content is as follows: At first, I didn't realize that I had depression. During that period, I often suffered from insomnia, would start crying in the morning without thinking, and would still cry while sitting at my desk at night. Every day, the trash can was full of tissues I had thrown away to wipe my tears and snot.

After a while, I don’t know when it happened, but my thinking ability began to weaken, and my brain became stiff and uncontrollable. Except for sitting or lying down and spacing out, my brain could not function normally, like a computer that had frozen, and no matter how much I typed it, it was useless.

It's like being trapped in an abyss, unable to get out and unable to move, letting time slip away inch by inch, stuck in the same place, unable to control yourself.

After some time like this, my dwindling senses reminded me that I remembered that sunny afternoon, with a constant flow of people and cars on the street. At the hospital, a chief physician or something similar first inquired about my situation, asking if I wanted to undergo further testing or see a psychologist directly. Then I began to feign composure and recount my experience, but from the very first word, I was already sobbing uncontrollably. The doctor handed me a box of tissues, and I stammered out my story.

I had no experience in deciding what to do next, and both the examination fees and the cost of psychotherapy were very high for me. I ran out to call a friend.

I clearly remember that it was a sunny day, and I was crying my eyes out at the entrance of the mental health center. I didn't care what the security guard at the entrance thought of me; I only remembered my friend telling me on the phone, "Why don't you go talk to a psychologist? I've had tests done, and they're pretty useless. It's just filling out some forms and costing a few hundred yuan. Let's not waste that money."

For a while afterward, the situation didn't seem to worsen, except for a dull, persistent pain in my left and right chest areas—a physical, aching pain. Driven by a strong desire to help myself, I visited several hospitals and consulted with classmates in medical school, taking some medications they recommended.

During this period, brain function is not as normal as before. Although the number of times I cry loudly has decreased, my reaction ability to read and attend classes, my ability to process information, and my memory have all been greatly impaired.

I didn't finish many of the assignments given by the teachers at the time, not because I was lazy, but because I genuinely couldn't do them. As the final exams approached, I spent almost half the semester either running around to the hospital or immersed in sadness. Self-help had already taken a lot of my energy, and I was too busy taking care of myself to think about anything else.

Then one day, a friend who cared about me messaged me on WeChat: "Put all your worries aside now, prioritize your own happiness and health, and do whatever you like." At that moment, my heavy mind felt lost. Why? Because my problem had become so severe that I was incapable of processing the information "what I want to do" from my own mind. Aside from the necessities of daily life—eating, drinking, and using the toilet—everything else was incredibly difficult. For example, normally: a Happy Twist movie is released, and I'm looking forward to seeing it. Street food looks delicious, and I want to try it. These ordinary "thoughts" for most normal people were luxuries for me at that time. My cognitive functions had degenerated to the point that everything except the most basic instinctive actions was blocked.

To use a common description from someone with depression: I've completely broken down. Day and night, numb and unaware, devoid of joy, sorrow, and vitality. On the surface, I appear normal, but inwardly, I've been swallowed up and corroded, like an instinctive puppet, listless and dull. The main unit has burned out, leaving only an empty shell. At this point, I finally believed it was indeed depression, the legendary disease I thought was unattainable. I dropped out of school, refusing to return, and went home to recover. I knew I had depression, and I also knew that depression comes in countless forms and variations. I had even started writing a suicide note, but I abandoned it because I felt my writing was too poor. A suicide note is, after all, the last little essay you leave in this world, and my vanity prevented me from producing a satisfactory one. Before the deadline for the suicide note was reached, I postponed jumping off the building.

I have no tasks to complete each day, so I spend almost the entire time lying on the sofa watching TV series episode after episode. I'm not good at anything else either; even typing is a struggle. It often takes me a long time to piece together a single sentence. My head is also constantly foggy and throbbing. I'm fine in the morning, but by the afternoon my head feels heavy, I'm very tired, and there's a pressing pain. I don't know which nerve is damaged, but my brain feels trapped, and I can't move forward or backward. A traditional Chinese medicine practitioner diagnosed me with insufficient blood supply, but I didn't believe it.

Later, I considered medication, but I didn't go to the hospital. Why? At the time, I was almost completely silent at home, and I even uninstalled WeChat, cutting off all contact with everyone. My language, expression, and summarization abilities were severely damaged. Even with all my strength, I could hardly explain to anyone the utter despair and helplessness I was in. Seeing a doctor requires describing your symptoms, right? I couldn't express it. I hadn't lost the ability to speak, but I had lost the ability to speak.

My friend was worried about me and texted me, telling me to go out and resume socializing, not to stay cooped up at home, or it would get worse. I didn't even want to reply; I was exhausted. But she genuinely cared, so I awkwardly replied, "Okay, don't worry." Later, she insisted I reinstall WeChat, and I couldn't resist, so I did. I said, "You know what? I don't know why, but whenever I try to think hard about something, my left chest hurts—a real, tangible pain, not a hallucination. And my brain resists thinking; it's like a fixed boundary line has been drawn up, and if I cross it even slightly, my brain forces me to stop. It's like a heavily guarded border between two countries, you know?"

After that, I relied mainly on the internet for self-help because communicating with other people was ineffective. It's like trying to vividly describe a penguin when no one has ever seen one; it won't evoke any empathy, it will just make people think you're talking nonsense. They won't understand, and thankfully they don't. They'll try to advise you in their own way, like "So-and-so is much worse off than you," or "That's enough," creating a superficial back-and-forth conversation, but you'll never build any connection. It's like talking to a brick wall, casting pearls before swine.

Depression is a solitary struggle, a self-imposed prison, a lone battle, a weakened, broken, and incomplete you wrestling with that big black dog. The cruelest part is twofold: first, your energy is diminished, your fighting power drastically reduced; second, despite your faltering state, you must still grit your teeth and fight alone. You walk this dark road alone, stumbling and struggling, and if you collapse, the stakes could be losing the rest of your life. Without exaggeration, this was the most agonizing battle of my life.