Depression isn’t cool.

Taking daily anti-depressants and talking to a therapist twice a month isn’t something that high schoolers should want or think is cool. They shouldn’t joke about killing themselves, and they shouldn’t use depression as a scapegoat when they feel a little bummed one day. Because depression isn’t cuddling up on your couch and listening to sad music; it’s gulping down pills to stop the voices in your head and it’s the kind of feeling not found on the outside, but the inside.

I don’t look depressed, but I am. I can smile, laugh and joke with my friends every day at school, but that doesn’t mean my life is perfect. It doesn’t mean that I haven’t had voices in my head and sadness in my bones, because I have. I’ve had scars on my wrists and therapists who’ve asked me how I am. There were days when I thought the only possible way to end the mental illness we call depression was killing myself.

Like I said, depression isn’t cool.

When I was in seventh grade, living was harder. It was just that simple for me. That living and breathing and being myself was harder than any homework assignment I had completed, any test that I had taken. It was just harder. Then again the next year, only worse. No one knew. No one had any clue that the girl who was smiling and making witty remarks was depressed. My parents, my sibling, my friends — they all didn’t know. And sometimes, during the days where the light at the end of the tunnel seemed too far off, I wished they did. But at that time it was just easier to keep my depression to myself. They thought I was fine. But I wasn’t, and in fact, I was the furthest thing from it.

I was drowning, and everyone else was breathing.

For those of you who aren’t as familiar with depression, here are the most common ones found in young adults ages 15-24: clinical depression, melancholia, dysthymic depression, and seasonal affective disorder. Depression can be hereditary, meaning it is passed down from generations, and sometimes it isn’t hereditary. Sometimes, it just happens. My family’s blood runs thick with depression, and that means mine does too.

It’s still hard. There are days more difficult than others, and that’s ok, but it’s not cool.

Depression isn’t cool, no matter how much society begs to differ.