Life is meaningless

What is depression?

The next day, Tegan went into school, to find Alice lying with her head on her hands on her desk obviously half asleep and super bored.
"Hey Alice, what's wrong with you ?"
"Stupid deeper learning day *today!" She said, obviously angry and frustrated.
"Oh, what's it about this time?" Tegan said sliding into her seat and rolling her eyes.
"Mental health"
"Oh, well maybe it won't be that bad then ?"
"Well I guess not, but deeper learning days are always really boring!"
"Yeah, but at least we have lessons together !"
"Yeah, that's good!" As Alice said this, the teacher walked in and shouted,
"Alright everybody, sit your self down and listen up. As some of you may know, it's a deeper learning day today and the topic is mental health! So somebody get your exercise books from the back and hand them out !"
Alice and Tegan, then looked at each other with a really bored look on their faces. 'Today is going to be a long day!'
Tegan thought.

Ten minutes later, the class had finally settled down and were doing their work.
"So class, please write down the word depression in your books and draw a circle around it, we are going to do a spider diagram. Now, around your circle, please discuss with your partner write what you think a depressed person is like. We will discuss it in a minute."
"So, Tegan what do you think a depressed person is like?"
"Ummm...I don't know...lonely?"
"Ok,let's write that, what else? What about sad?"
"Yeah and what about a loner?"
"Umm...crying everyday?"
"Yeah, umm how about they think about suicide all the time?"
"Alright class that's enough, so now who's going to share their answers, and I'll write them on the board?"shouted Mr lambert.
"Lonely!"someone shouted
"Crying everyday!"said someone else.
"A loner!"
"Thinks about suicide!"
"Does self harm!"
"Sad!"
"Alright, that's enough!" Said the teacher. "What we have on the board, is what we call stereotypes! Does anybody know what stereotypes are?"
There was silence amongst the class.
"Well, stereotypes are an opinion or an idea of a particular type of person or thing that is usually only based on a few people. So for example, not all depressed people sit alone in their room and cry every night. Some act one way in front of their friends and family and hide their true personality until they are alone."
" So stereotypes are just an idea of something that loads of people have but is just based on one person of that type?"asked Tegan.
"Yes Tegan, perfect explanation. So actually, not all depressed people think about suicide, and they all also don't always sit and cry every night in their rooms! Some are like everyday normal people, but when they are alone or even sometimes with friends, they think about all of the dark and bad things in their life. They a lot of the time think about their friends and family, and how they are accepted by people around them."
A picture appeared on the whiteboard, of four girls all together in a school playground chatting and giggling.
"So based one what I just said, who can tell me which one they think is depressed?"
"The girl on the left!" shouted a girl from the back of the room.
"No..."
"The girl on the right !"
"No..."
"Wait, is it the girl in the middle that's laughing ?"
"Yes, most people think that depressed people are always sad and lonely but actually they can be sad when they are alone or at home just like this girl"

*Deeper learning days are days that high schools have where you learn life lessons one day instead of normal lessons. You have these lessons with people in your form instead of your normal classmates.