I’m not sure when it started.  I know at one time I used to be happy, I don’t remember when it was though.  It's like I always had depression, I just was scared to talk to anyone except my best friend because we were going through the same thing.  I was constantly upset.  I was feeling guilty for things I had nothing to do with.

My sister had a stroke in 1999; that was probably the main reason.  She has since learned to walk again and talk again.  She has two sons now.  She was in an emotionally abusive relationship that was starting to turn physical.  I felt like, Maybe it I was there for her more then she would finally break up with him. There must be something I did wrong for her to go to him and not come to us for help.  I realize now that that was not healthy, but that was the way I felt about pretty much everything.  My friend was crying, I must have done something.  Mom and Dad where arguing, I must have done something.  On and on it went.

It probably would have gone on forever like that, my parents thought it was some “teenage thing” after all aren’t all teenagers “moody”?  That is what they thought about it.  If not for the one day that my friend and I were both really upset.  We went to the nurse’s office because the school counselor wasn’t in her room.  We talked and talked about how we felt. It got to the point were she asked if we were feeling suicidal.  I was going to lie, there is such a negative stigma about everything that has to do with a mental illness, especially suicide.  But then my best friend said yes she was and that got me to tell me the truth.

She marched us to the counselor’s office and made us talk to the counselor after the nurse found her.  The counselor called our parents and I was terrified.  I didn’t what to talk to them.  Not after they had been told I was feeling suicidal.  They turned out to be really understanding, though.  They came to school and talked to me.  That night they scheduled my first meeting with a therapist and took me to an emergency consultation at a therapist’s office near the hospital to make sure I wasn’t a danger to myself.

I was diagnosed with situational depression.  But lately things have been changing.  Things have gotten better but I haven’t.  I still have problems.  I’m still worried about my friend, her parents haven’t done anything.  I’m hoping that I will be better by the time I graduate. I’m only 15 right now.  I don’t know if it is a realistic dream yet or not.  There are times when I do feel really good but there are more down days still.

I still cry about things normal people wouldn’t cry about.  Then again, I’ve been told there is no such thing as normal.  It would be nice to have a regular, run-of-the-mill, day for once. Maybe my day will come.