Hi everyone, I’m Zhao Yue. I’m really happy to be here sharing my story with you today. What I want to focus on is the most important mindset I learned during my battle with depression.

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Three years ago, that autumn, after going through some unpleasant experiences (I won’t go into details here), something about me changed for the worse. I lost interest in everything—I didn’t feel like eating, talking, or even painting, which used to be my greatest passion. Back then, I didn’t want to end my life, but I had no enthusiasm for living either; that agony is hard to put into words. Worse still, the more anxious I was to get better, the deeper I sank into a vicious cycle. Eventually, I developed severe anxiety, too.

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I struggled through this for nearly a year before deciding to follow my friend Zhou Tong to Amy’s Women Empowerment, the organization she attended every weekend. I was desperate for strength back then. Even though I had no idea what the organization did, I would have been grateful for even a little support. When I first met Amy, she was just a young girl barely reaching my shoulders. Besides her, there were six or seven volunteer friends from different professions and age groups. I didn’t overthink it at the time—I just felt warm in my heart. Everyone here had a nurturing, mother-earth-like warmth that gave me a lot of comfort and strength to keep going.

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Later, at the organization’s recovery experience sharing sessions, listening to the friends talk about their real struggles and how “it’s normal to recover slowly or have setbacks along the way,” the anxiety in my heart gradually faded. In the self-awareness check-in activities, I started recording small things, like “I had a proper meal today” or “I sketched a few strokes today.” By focusing on these tiny improvements little by little, I slowly learned to reconcile with myself. The friends also encouraged me to pick up my paintbrush again—not to paint for others, but to use painting as a way to talk to myself.

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Now, I’ve successfully returned to work. Looking back, depression was like a thick fog that made me lose my way. But once I truly stepped out of it, I realized that those days of groping carefully through the fog had actually helped me understand myself better.

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I want to share that if you’re also struggling at this moment, I hope you can believe in the power of “taking it slow.” Don’t force yourself to get better quickly. Accepting this slowness and being gentle with yourself is the start of reconciling with yourself. Thank you to Amy’s Women Empowerment for its warm empowerment and companionship along the way. May every friend who’s struggling have the courage to seek support and wait for the day when the fog lifts and the light shines through.