According to Merriam-Webster, depression is defined as “a serious medical condition in which a person feels very sad, hopeless, and unimportant and often is unable to live in a normal way.” Yet in the world we live in today, many people think that depression is not a medical condition, not a lack of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine, but an excuse to not do something. If depression is a medical condition, then why are people treating it like it isn’t? It would be like being angry at someone for having type one diabetes, which is foolish because no one can control when their pancreas stops producing insulin.

Depression has been a part of my life since I was born. My mother has severe postpartum depression after she gave birth to me and it never went away. My father couldn’t understand my mother was trapped in her own personal hell and needed help to get out. I can remember sitting in my parent's bedroom as five year old little pig tailed girl with cartoons are way too loud. I remember sitting behind the closed door, little ear pressed against the wood to try and listen to what they were saying.

But like all the arguments that my parents would have, the event would end with my mother packing my things and driving me to my grandmother’s house, where my mom would stay for a few days locked in a room crying and I was blissfully unaware of the pain that I would experience later.

Over the summer, after battling the same depression my mother was struggling with, I went to the doctor and expressed to her that sometimes, I feel like I’m dying on the inside. My doctor looked at me and said, “Well, you’re a teenager. That’s normal. Nothing is wrong with you and it’s all in your head.” And I believed her, because she was my doctor and I trusted her. But the feeling never away. I kept feeling worse and worse.

          As the months passed, I slowly began to realize that I could not go on living like this. So, I finally got the courage to get help from someplace else. My school’s wellness center provided me with a counselor, someone who believed me when I told her that I felt like I was dying on the inside and felt so anxious sometimes that I couldn’t move. She told me that I probably had an anxiety disorder and mild depression, something that I got from both my parents I discovered upon further investigation.

I never really understood why people think that they’re weak for admitting something is wrong with them. No one will think I’m weak if I’m sick, but the moment that I admit to having depression, I get told that it’s just an excuse and that I’m lazy. Yes, there are people that use depression as an excuse, but that shouldn’t mean I have to be punished for someone else’s sins.

The stigma attached to mental illness, like depression, should be talked about more; not just whispered about in close quarters because people are too embarrassed to say that something is wrong. Just because someone does not have a perfectly functioning brain does not mean society should treat them as less than human.