Between lashes and lipsticks, I found a routine that depression had no hold on. And it made me feel on top of the world.

Health and wellness touch each of us differently. This is one person’s story.

Makeup and depression. They don’t exactly go hand-in-hand, do they?

One implies glamour, beauty, and being “put together,” whereas the other implies sadness, loneliness, self-loathing, and lack of care.

I’ve worn makeup for years now, and I’ve also been depressed for years — little did I know how one would actually impact the other.

I first developed depressive tendencies when I was 14 years old. I was completely unaware of what was happening to me, and unsure of how I was going to get through it. But I did. Years passed and I was finally diagnosed at 18 with bipolar disorder, which is characterized by severe low moods and manic highs. Throughout my schooling years, I fluctuated between severe depression and hypomania, using dangerous methods to help cope with my illness.

It wasn’t till my early 20s that I discovered self-care. The idea baffled me. I had spent years of my life battling this illness, using alcohol, self-harm, and other awful methods to help deal with it. I never thought self-care could help.

Self-care simply implies a way of helping yourself through a difficult time, and looking after yourself, be it a bath bomb, a walk, a conversation with an old friend — or in my case, makeup.

I’d worn makeup since I was young, and as I grew older, it became more of a helper… and after that, a mask. But then I discovered something within the lashes, the eyeshadows, the lipsticks. I realized it was so much more than what it seemed on the surface. And it became a huge step in my recovery.