As I revisit our filmed depression event from months ago, I’m struck by how much of me feels the same. No matter the day, I live between highs and lows, especially as an entrepreneur running a mental health organization. I bite my nails, I take myself on walks, I eat my vegetables. I’ll have a week where I feel nothing matters and I do not understand myself. Then another week where I feel so empowered and interested in myself, my work and the incredible conversations I get to call my career. 

Three years ago, I wrote the Our Story section on saymore. To send that personal story to my tech team felt like the beginning of being open—even with strangers on the internet—about my depression.

In one section, I wrote:

“I still believe that my body is missing the air filter, the sliding screen door that helps filter thoughts and feelings before they hit me straight to the core. Every story I heard, every tender moment I experienced, every good or bad thing landed right on my chest, knocking the wind out of me every time.”

Looking back, I realize how long I’ve been circling this question - why I do this work and why I keep going personally and professionally. See below the response I got from my project manager now friend from across the world.

I am seeing friends experience depression who I never thought would. While we exist in our algorithms, our real lives gently mirror that in ways as well. I think my world is stretching into other avenues of joy, other routes of growth and room to be surprised. But I have always been somewhat depressed. And as I recognize that in myself, I do think I can recognize that in others too. So just my small perspective, this is what I am seeing and reading.

Do Antidepressants Help with Depression? My Experience

A friend recommended Lost Connections by Johann Hari, which challenges the “chemical imbalance” explanation for depression. Hari argues that lack of social connection, community, and purpose are often more central to depression than serotonin levels.

When I started antidepressants at twenty-two, they worked for me. I’ve joked that I’m a “placebo girl,” but even if that’s all it was, the relief was real. A friend of mine is starting anti-depressants for the first time and she is very worried about the side effects so she might find different results. It really is everyone’s unique experience so listen to your gut. And also… if your gut thinks you should just “grin and bear it”…maybe check into why you are fine with making your life harder when you might not have to suffer. Break the cycle!!!

Stress vs. Burnout

The word “burnout” is everywhere now. Research suggests stress often leads toward anxiety, while burnout leans more toward depression (Calm Blog). That framing makes sense: many people are tipping over from stress into burnout, especially in today’s climate.

Here’s a quick stress vs. burnout chart that highlights key differences:

This shift - from stress to burnout - may be why so many are experiencing depression who never thought they would. It IS confusing so take the time for compassion to determine what might be the best next step for #selfcare going forward. 

What Depression Looks Like: Different Experiences, Different Symptoms

As I get older, I seek out others whose depression feels like mine. Just like I wouldn’t take skincare advice from someone with a completely different skin type, or fashion advice from someone half my size, I look for people whose experiences mirror my own.

My depression doesn’t always look like the textbook definition I was taught - never getting out of bed, not showering, crying constantly. Very rarely it might, but more often it looks different. The worst days of my depression feel like a heavy dread where every sad story I hear or angry comment I read on the internet makes me feel like we are on a rotting, terrible, irredeemable planet. Other days are just completely grey, where my mind does what it does and we get by with a little sunshine and a good sweat hopefully. 

I think we do each other a disservice when we say this is what you should do, or shouldn’t do. I do think therapy helps, I do think medication can help but it is what works for you. But it’s not the same for everyone, and we should allow for that complexity and nuance.

I once said on TikTok that I wish no one else knew what depression felt like. I hate when people relate to my darkest moments. And yet, when someone can’t relate, my reflex thought is: must be nice.

As an empathetic person, I believe we’re evolving. It makes sense that sometimes we want to hide in a dark room because the noise, online and offline, is too much. It makes sense that inherited pain from past generations, especially women, still weighs on us. Against that backdrop, “seeking joy” every day feels oversimplified and unrealistic.

Soooo... Do I Still Have Depression?

Depression isn’t a one-size-fits-all condition. It doesn’t always look like the stereotypes, and it doesn’t always respond to the same treatments. It shifts over time, in different bodies, in different lives.

For me, it’s an ongoing relationship - sometimes heavy, sometimes quiet, always requiring attention. For others, it may look entirely different. What matters is making space for that range of experiences and staying curious about what works.

So maybe the better question isn’t “Do I still have depression?” but “How do I keep learning to live with it in ways that let me keep going?”

My all time favorite poet passed away this week and I have fifteen years of love for them and their work stored up into all of these formative moments in my life that I wanted to share. 

I was first introduced to Andrea Gibson when I was in high school, catholic high school. I took a creative writing class where my teacher introduced me to Andrea’s work. Andrea is a queer, non binary writer, poet, and speaker. Growing up in a sports-centered family, words held a lot of power but not a lot of responsibility. Early on I loved their poem, the Nutritionist, which helped make me feel so much less alone, struggling with my depression from a young age.

“But knowing as bad as it hurts,

our hearts may have only just skinned their knees

knowing there is a chance the worst day might still be cominglet me say right now for the record, I’m still gonna be hereasking this world to dance, even if it keeps stepping on my holy feet.”

Even when I was actively religious about six years ago, Andrea’s mention of god was a god I really wanted to believe in. With Andrea’s identity, I was surprised that their poems had god in them at all, a god that sounded far kinder than the one everyone else was talking about. I will never forget seeing Andrea perform in North Carolina, I felt so much. I really wanted to talk to them after, and I did while I asked them to sign a poster for me. What do you say to someone who inspired you to read and write for yourself, who made you cry at their words, who felt like you felt? I knew they had probably heard it all from their fans but I was the most star struck I have ever been. It was the closest to feeling holy I had ever felt...in connection with this beautiful person. 

"I said to the sun, 

'Tell me about the big bang.'

The sun said,

'it hurts to become.' "

And on the way home my religious friend said, “Wow that was amazing. Too bad she is probably not going to heaven because she is gay.” Whoa….I did not know I was queer yet myself, but that comment always stuck with me. Watching this incredible person go up there, share their poems, their heart… and you still leave the function condemning them to hell based on their sexuality. 

"Once I found a butterfly’s wing on the sidewalk.

I wanted to keep it but I didn’t.

I knew there were things I should never find beautiful. 

Like death.

And girls."

It is a really weird feeling to have someone that helped you through your darkest moments die from cancer so young. The person that has somehow lit up every other corner of my life and led me to where I am now. What scares me the most is that I will never hear any new poems from Andrea ever again. They are gone, at forty nine years old. And now their life is taken from them when they used to write about wanting to die. I think anyone can relate to that fear. The one where you might not want to be here anymore but then not having the choice. Or the illusion of choice.

"Tonight I’m catching nothing but the lightning bug

My body is a mason jar

transparent as a jellyfish

I wish for a heart you can see straight through

for a voice that glows in the dark"

Andrea Gibson lived a life where their words touched people deeply. They touched me to my core. They kept me alive some nights. Ex friends and lovers of mine will recognize their name. They inspired me to believe in more, to articulate myself better, and to try and be here with all the feeling. I want to leave you with this poem of theirs that has stayed with me the most. 

"The soul misses the unforever of old age, the skin that no longer fits.

The soul misses every single day the body was sick, the now it forced, the here it built from the fever

What else could touch a screen door and taste lemonade?

What else could come back from a war and not come back? But still try to live?

When a human dies the soul moves through the universe trying to describe how a body trembles when it's lost, softens when it's safe

How a wound would heal given nothing but time. 

Do you understand? 

Nothing can fathom the landscape of awe, the heat of shame. 

The fingertips pulling the first grey hair and throwing it away.

I can't imagine it, the stars say.

Tell us again about goosebumps. 

Tell us again about pain."

- Stephanie Kaiser, Founder

I left my job back in February and immediately felt a huge amount of pressure come off me. However, I quickly switched into nomadic planning life. Full time traveling is fun, however having to always make decisions can get hard. My inner thoughts of "I shoulda done ..." or "If I had only ..." have been getting louder these days. I notice these inner dialogues are easy to fuel as pushing a decision 1 day can mean an extra $100 on that plane ticket, or no more availability at that Hostel. 

I stick with my affirmations and journaling however ... I would love to hear if anyone else has left something really stressful to do something that seemed less stressful for it to actually create an almost equal amount of indecisive procrastination stress. 

One of my favorite parts of this work, aka saymore, is meeting women I might not have crossed paths with otherwise. I was halfway through writing this July post on queer representation, but I scrapped it last minute. One conversation this week kept bouncing around these walls and I wanted to talk about it.

I’ve met a lot of people in my life so far, moving across the country a couple times, changing jobs a couple more times. I used to think ‘networking’ was just part of the deal and what a bummer that was. Shake hands, send the email, smile, repeat. But now, it feels different. Now I get to meet people who lead with something else. People who lead with a little more heart. Who weren’t immediately welcomed. Who kept going anyway. Those were the people I wanted to hear from the most and more often than not, they really do move me to tears (in the best way).

Being a queer woman building something in the mental health space, I knew I was not the majority. I still wanted to find my people - professionally speaking. And oh wow, did I find them. But not without casting a wide net, sitting through conversations that left me drained, navigating feedback I didn’t ask for. In the beginning you have to take every call, every introduction. Now I know better. I don’t need to meet everyone. I take referrals more seriously. I’m protective of my time. And more and more I make it a priority to spend my time with the right people.

So the other day, I met another one of those “right people.” She told me she’d read the “about me” on our  saymore site - something I always forget lives online. She even quoted a line from it back to me and I felt my heart catch. Hearing this woman who lives on the other side of the world identifying with my depression, I just felt so moved. 

But I also felt so sad. I always tell people I hope they can’t relate to the parts of me that write about depression. I wouldn’t wish that kind of knowing on people, though I know they are out there. The irony is not lost on me that I am building a space for connection and I hope no one connects with me and my depression. But she knew this kind of depression well. So we talked. We laughed. We shared stories. She told me she wrote a book of poetry, something I’ve always wanted to do too. She said her mom told her it was full of pain. She said it was full of truth. Before we hung up, she said something I’m still turning over in my mind. She said that even with all the pain of the pages before, she ended the book with this: she is every one of her favorite songs. Every sunset stacked on top of another. She is what she loves and what she hates. Like she’s collecting all these versions of herself, and they all get to live together. 

I ordered her book. I wanted to hear the rest.

So I’ve been thinking about myself, too. About not having to be just one thing. Just last week, I got a friend's old record player and I’ve been running around town collecting Mac Miller vinyls. I propagate my own plants now and I know what that word means! I organized a scavenger hunt for some friends and fed them rice krispy treats after like they were five year olds. You change. You keep changing. And the hard things don’t disappear, but they don’t define the whole picture either. 

Sometimes I think people hear the word mental health and it comes with a big sigh. But as much as my depression lives with me, it is smaller some days. That goes with anything. We’re all a lot of things. Not just strong because we have to be. Not just tired because the world is exhausting. We’re also funny, silly. Loud, quiet. Smart and kinda dumb… that’s great! That is allowed! I want to be all the things! 

In a binary world that only lets you be one or the other, I want it all. And I hope this gives you a little bit of permission today to be whoever the hell fits right this minute.

I will never forget the true swings of depression in my twenties. By the time this goes up I will be freshly thirty years old and I cannot wait. It’s not that I expect life to suddenly get easier, or that depression and disappointment disappear at thirty. But I feel grateful to be moving on from a chapter that felt so dizzying and raw.

I have been excited to turn thirty starting early on in my twenties. I remember coming home for Thanksgiving not long after graduating college. I had moved from a sunny, vibrant city to a colder, more sterile one, chasing a job I hoped would give me some direction. At the dinner table, surrounded by my family, I felt completely numb. I had no interests to speak of, nothing I was excited about. I felt like a shell. My sister made a joke about someone she knew turning thirty—how terrible that must be—and without thinking I said, “I can’t wait to be thirty.” Even at twenty-two, I knew: whatever this is, I don’t want it.

I was suspicious of the twenties in general. People told me college would be the best years of my life—it wasn’t. Then they said real money and promotions would fulfill me—they didn’t. They promised new cities would fix the rest. They hadn’t. So I started wondering: who were all these people, offering these vague, sweeping truths about how life should feel? Whoever they were—I didn’t trust them.

What I meant then, and what I still mean now, is that I wanted a life that felt more…human. I wanted new experiences to shape me. I wanted to change my mind and then change it again. I wanted to be in situations that challenged me and meet people who challenged my way of thinking. What I received was monotonous days, empty hangovers, and the endless shuffling of papers in Corporate America. This felt like the beginning of the rest of my life.  

The twenties moved forward in all their stumbling mediocrity. Every system—work, healthcare, relationships—revealed itself to be far more broken than I’d imagined. I’ll never forget my first “free” preventative doctor’s appointment that cost me $340 because I mentioned having a cold at the time. 

The twenties have a way of teaching you just how much you don’t know, and how fast you’re expected to figure it out anyway.

I hoped that by thirty, I’d stop feeling like every mistake was a public faceplant and every heartbreak meant I’d never be okay again. I’m not saying that won’t ever happen again, but the edges have softened. I’ve grown more comfortable with myself, and less interested in pretending the status quo works well enough for me.

What I will always appreciate about that twenties shine that never fully arrived was I got to make my own world. I got to build my own timelines for what I wanted my life to look like. I ditched the fake luster of being a cog in a corporate machine. I left so many cities and made new friends that reflected the kind of person I was and wanted to be. I realized I was a queer woman who did not want kids and that blew up the rest of what was my ‘ticking biological clock.’ It was the best of times, it was the worst of times! But I was finally and truly free. 

In that same vein, I never planned to build something like saymore. It came from tuning into the parts of myself I used to try to quiet—the parts that craved connection, honesty, and something more meaningful than just checking boxes. I spent so much time chasing safety, doing what was “smart,” trying to follow the five year plan. But eventually I realized: it’s more worthwhile to take risks and lots of them. Saymore is my contribution to the internet, of shaping it into something softer, more reflective, more human.

Whatever this next chapter holds for thirty year old Steph, I know this: I will do it my way. There will still be all of the feelings from the twenties but this time I will have more confidence and self trust. And for whatever is still ahead—for me, for saymore—this space will hold what it needs to and we will be more than okay.

So no, I don’t dread turning thirty. I welcome it. I’m not going away—I’m just getting started.