If you ask anyone that’s depressed, pain feels so good. It’s the most, the best relief that you can get. If you can channel that into something else like working out, like a run… I’m a very poor runner, like it hurts to run, I’m so bad.. if you can channel [the pain] into that, instead of cutting or hurting yourself, it’s so much better.
I go on runs, as far as it can take me.
I have depression, and I’ve had it for all of high school, pretty much. It kind of runs in my family — not depression, but bipolar.
I’ve seen seven [therapists] in high school. It’s really hard because they’re all weird. I never liked them.
My parents, for a couple of years, were like, ‘You have no friends.’ And I’m like, ‘I have friends, I just don’t want to hang out with them.’ They’re very hostile towards it because they don’t understand it.
My siblings don’t even know that I’m on medication. I hide it from them in my bathroom. I don’t tell any of my friends. It’s very uncomfortable to talk about, even with my parents, [even though] I have to.
I do think [mental health] is prevalent. A lot more kids than you think are on antidepressants or ADHD medicine.
I know that kids show up and it’s very clear that they’re depressed, no teacher’s going to report it to the counselor. They’re clearly asking for help, but they just don’t want to intervene, and they don’t know how to. And with students I think it’s just hard, too.
[We need] openness to talk about it. You know, we’re a very very liberal school and we talk about LGBT, which is also a very controversial subject.
I think it’s very hard to be accepting and aware if you don’t personally know someone who struggles with it or can understand that, so I can completely understand where people are coming from. I mean, I can’t relate to someone who’s super ADHD, that’s not me. I think that understanding it is good, but the person who’s struggling with it themself has to learn how to deal with it, because the world’s not going to change for you.
People just see it as, ‘She wants all the attention on her, she’s not saying anything, she’s obviously upset,’ but you’re trying your hardest to put a good face on. I think when I was not on medication I felt a little more ostracized, but now it’s not that much of a problem, and I know that if I told some of my close friends they would be, of course, accepting of it, but I just don’t want to.
