Trigger warning: talks about depression, suicide, and self harm.

Okay so I'm sure some of you know that I suffer from depression. That's a fact, it was diagnosed and everything.
What kills me is when I see these kids talk about being depressed and then not really knowing what depression is.
You know, the kids who think their Netflix show being cancelled causes depression.

If that's you, please at least read this before you click off because you're so offended, I'm just sharing my opinion because I'm starting to get offended.

I know some people do actually have depression and then continue to joke about it and things like that, and I also know there are many different ways depression can take effect. I tried to cover as many as I could, but I also wanted to stay true to my own experiences.

I'm here trying to fix everybody vision of depression so they don't see it as just a moody teen problem.

Let me get one thing straight.
Depression isn't a "side effect" of puberty.
Not every teen has depression.
You aren't required to have depression to be "cool".
Depression is not just hating yourself.
You can have low self esteem and not be depressed.
You don't have to be a teen to be depressed, it's actually more common in adults.
You don't have to self harm to be depressed.
You don't have to want death to be depressed.

Stop spreading lies about depression there's a huge difference between being insecure about your looks and depression. And frankly, I'm tired of hearing every single person I meet tell me they're depressed. Like, yes I know it is a rather common mental illness, that doesn't make it contagious, nor does it mean every teen has it. I'm tired of hearing all this other bs. Please, please, please, don't claim to have depression if you don't because I can explain to you how depression feels and it's not at all what everyone says.

Depression is not feeling sad-it's feeling nothing or empty.
Depression is not wanting to die-it's not being able to find a reason to live.
Depression is not sleeping in-it's sleeping too much because it separates you from your thoughts.
Depression is not sleeping to little-it's not being able to sleep at night because you keep having bad thoughts and you can't get them out of your head.

Depression is not self harm-it's harming yourself because you want to feel something again. It's harming yourself because you haven't felt anything real in weeks and you want to be normal. It's harming yourself because you know people care, but you also know that you're just another weight they have to carry around. It's harming yourself because it's the only way to get the voices to leave you alone or to get the thoughts to slow down. It's harming yourself because there's no reason not to because you won't be alive much longer anyway. It's harming yourself to show you've given up on life and ever truly feeling anything again. It's harming yourself not because you want to, but because you need to.

Depression is not being lonely-it's having friends, but isolating yourself because you care about them more than they could ever care about you.
Depression is not having bad grades-it's not having any motivation to bring your grades up because there's no way you'll survive past high school.
Depression isn't not wanting to live long-it's not being able to picture yourself having a future.
Depression isn't being unable to be happy-it's feeling happy, but then feeling guilty for being happy when there are others out there who aren't.
Depression isn't hating school-it's not seeing a point to going to school because you won't ever use this stuff if you die before 15 anyway.
Depression isn't putting yourself down-it's only being able to see the negatives about yourself even when people start listing the positives.
Depression isn't "just gonna go away"-it will last for awhile, especially without treatment and will slowly eat away at your insides until you're nothing but dust in the wind.
Depression isn't "just too stressed"-it's having too many things on your mind at once and you can never focus on just one thing, so you don't focus on anything.
Depression doesn't make you weak-it makes you feel vulnerable and exposed all the time and sometimes overly defensive. It makes you stronger, the longer you fight.

Before you all start to say "this is so random, what brought this on?"

And the truth is nothing. But also everything.

It is pretty random thst I just decided to do this today, but I just got really fed up with all of this.

But at the same time, this stuff has been going on for a long time and I think it needs to stop and I'm really tired of hearing "but you're not depressed anymore. You don't still cut yourself."

Also, these are all just my personal experiences with depression, there can be huge variations, but I wanted to only say what I've experienced myself.

There are a ton more sayings and things that I didn't end up talking about in this and I'm sorry for that, I thought the point was made clear enough.

Lastly, I don't care if you don't agree with this, this is real, trust me, I would know.

I thought there was more I was planning on saying, but I've honestly forgotten in the hour its taken me to write this.