"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.

The cause of depression originated from several different factors such as brain chemistry and inherited traits, but overtime, depression had evolved into a signal. It withdrew humans from harmful and distressing situations.

When I was in a depressive state, I left the highway of life. It was the mundane road where priorities blurred with stress and I didn't have time to think about myself, forced to follow the speed of the crowd so I could keep up with my studies and work.

Pulling myself out of the humdrum caused everything to stop—my hobbies, priorities, relationships—and these months spent behind my shield from society gave me the time and space to break away from the mould society encased me in and see the bigger picture.

Instead of idly watching the crowd go by like how those induced by the stigma assumed, this step back was expanding my view of the world and allowed me to weed out the unimportant people, and prioritize my goals.

I've grown this increasing capacity of appreciation and insight on significant others and my relationships.

I have more kindness and empathy towards other people's moods and feelings.

Now I'm more aware of my stress levels and I've learned effective coping mechanisms to deal with pressure.

The depressive state has evolved in a way for our body and mind to tell us something was wrong or we needed a better understanding or change of something. Like most people, I could've shoved this human instinct under the rug and continued to move on without a word.

But we teenagers and young adults in depressive states could no longer tolerate this life; what we had and knew wasn't good enough for our expectations and personal needs. In other words, we wanted to improve, and we were open to something different; we were open to change. We allowed our minds to break from this mundane box, and expand outward, thinking and reassessing and deepening our understanding of ourselves and the world.

Tell me, how are we failures if we pushed our boundaries and rooted our feet to the ground, refusing the tides of indifference to sweep us away like the rest of the society? Some may call us "dangerous" but I say we are brave.

We worked too hard or tried too hard or had too much on our plate, as whatever we had, hadn't been enough to meet our standards of living; this was how I fell "ill".

We sacrificed months and sometimes years for this change; to conquer this new point in our life and create a plan that will fulfill our new needs, and even develop a stronger, more compassionate relation towards other people.

As experiences come from the challenges, this challenge allowed us to free ourselves and redirect our thinking for a better life or a deeper meaning of it. The world's greatest thinkers, artists and gifted minds suffered from depression. For instance, Isaac Newton, and politicians like Abraham Lincoln and poets like Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson; all admired for their profound thinking, portrayal of extreme emotion, and brilliant madness. With our depressive state came self-discovery, and the search even lent itself to creative outputs.

Although teenagers and young adults in a depressive state have a pessimistic outlook, are unmotivated and resort into a separation from society, these factors of human suffering are insignificant to the implication of depression.

Humans in a depressive state are willing to own up and accept there is something wrong or something needs to change within their lives. Therefore, they address the significant problems with a more insightful outlook, appreciation and compassion, and initiate change for the better.

For this reason, teenagers and young adults in depressive states are at an adaptive advantage, and are ambitious, truthful and brave; growing and evolving the functions that make them human for the benefit of themselves and others.

I'm not recommending depression as a solution to a happier life. Depression is nothing to be ashamed about and isn't the result of failure. I'm not saying I fully understand depression just because I had it. Depression isn't a one-size-fits-all. Those with severe, chronic depression had a different battle than I did.

But just because I faced a different beastie, didn't mean I didn't fight. We may not belong in a single category, but we were fighting for the same thing: change. No one from a depressive state can tell you their life stayed the same after their episode.

Within eight months, I took the precious opportunity to distance myself from the humdrum and rebuild my view of the world. What people saw as small and ordinary, I saw after my depressive state to be beautiful. I valued the little things, appreciating the normalcy of life.

My depressive state toughened my skin, and I wasn't afraid to admit failure, knowing I will always come swinging back. I saw failure as a second chance to change my actions and thinking as I developed and strengthened my body and mind.

Depression is an illness, but the human suffering we should be worried about is the mental pain being inflicted on the minds that believe in the stigma; it damaging their ability to understand depression.

Depression is ruined awe kind of experience that throws you in a storm; "everyone" sees it as a chance to get cold, wet and miserable, but those who can see past the clouds, knows it's an opportunity to wash away the old habits, take bigger leaps into deeper puddles and dance for the rainbow that is certain to come.

xx 3.14 // Azia To