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L o v i n g ~ Depression: let's talk about the D

"Oh really?" Her eyes didn't even lift from her phone screen. "Yeah, I know a lot of people who are depressed too."

That was my friend's response after I told her I suffered from depression. I didn't know whether to be concerned or question if my friend truly understood the meaning of this mental illness. A minute ago, she talked about it as if depression was the newest social trend.

"Depression isn't defined by one word," I explained, in case she needed clarification. "There are different types: major, mild, relapsing/remitting and chronic depression."

"Mhm hm," she murmured, glimpsing back at her phone several times. I drummed my fingers against the desk and added that I suffered from major depression for eight long months to see if she would lift a brow.

"Wow, eight months?" She wrinkled her nose. "That must've sucked."

Before I could respond, she added, "I was depressed in grade eleven too. Like, it was for a few days, but I got over it pretty quick. I think it was just a phase or something; everyone was like that last year."

A phase? Everyone was like that last year?

The confusion on my face twisted into surprise. Was there a silent understanding we all experienced a form of depression in grade eleven, the transitional year when our academic studies grew difficult and escalated in importance?

Or was "everyone" experiencing this stereotypical depression? Have we tossed the term around so loosely that an oversimplified idea of depression; a constant sadness and feeling of hopelessness, had become a teenage "phase"?

The dots finally connected and realization clicked in. This illness, this chemical imbalance in the brain, was judged by the teenage demographic.

The next day, my friend seemed untouched when I brought up depression again until I said, "I attempted suicide too."

Her phone hit the table with the screen faced down. "You what?"

That. That right there.

As soon as I added the serious consequence to depression, her attitude made a one-eighty turn and I was looked at differently. She stayed quiet around me for a whole week.

What my friend thought as a stereotype mutated into an ugly beast: a stigma. It surrounded the word depression like a dark, dangerous cloud, causing people to distance themselves and look away, making it difficult for everyone to see past the stigma and find the true implication of depression.

Perhaps I was out of place to tell my friend the severity of my depression, but after becoming who I was after the recovery, death didn't scare me and neither did the stigma or my peers' judgement.

Unfortunately, teenagers and young adults still live in fear of judgement and even try to deny their depressive state. I remember the stigma got a hold of my mind and I'd try to persuade myself that I was just being a dramatic teen or it was "all-in-my-head."

After my brain fed on this idea, the symptoms became severe, and I began wishing I was sick. That way I knew I hadn't gone crazy. Once realizing it was depression, I was afraid to tell anyone in case their label makers took a hit on me, and I'd been imprinted as "failure." I didn't want the faces of peers turning into pity, disgust, or overwhelming sympathy.

This stigma built on the symptoms of depression and the negative attitudes towards the mental illness has brought people to focus too much on the human suffering part. At the beginning of my depressive state, I was only engrossed in the suffering experience. During therapy, I realized these symptoms were not what created depression, and were meaningless to what was going on in my body and mind.