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Depression runs through my mom and her side of the family.My cousin tried to kill herself three years ago but she wasn't successful. After, getting treated at a institution, she came back and got her life together. She's still taking medications but lately everything has been okay. I get really bad anxiety attacks. I tend to overthink everything I do even the simplest things. I

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I had a friend/ talked to someone who was so unhappy. From the very first day i met him i could tell that he was sad. Sad because he didn't know why he was on this earth, he felt as if there was no reason for him being here. the first day we met he told me that he had attempted suicide but that it hadn't worked. I knew i had to help him, i wasn't sure if thats what i should do, but he had no one. I tried, i would remind him that he mattered, that he had a whole life ahead of himself but he kept on saying such negative things."Im a bad person" "no one cares if i'm gone" So one day, he told me that he had taken a bottle of pills, and that it wouldn't be much longer. I begged him to stop, to go to the hospital. I was scared, i didn't know what to do. I tried my best to make him realize that someone cared, i just couldn't.

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Both I and one of my family members have faced the struggle of self harm. It was the only way I felt like I had control over myself and my life. It almost seemed involuntary. There are times when I'm facing the choice and it is so mentally, emotionally, and physically tiring to make the right choice and take care of myself. These days it's not nearly as big of an issue as it used to be, but when times are bad it returns. It makes me feel guilty, but learning how to face this and handle it and make myself better has been the hardest but most rewarding challenge.

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About a year ago, I was going through a really hard time with my family; my father’s a heroin addict and my step father’s abusive and my mother doesn’t say anything about it. During my sophomore year, I attempted suicide and it failed. And afterward instead of getting the help and care that I needed I was scoleded and belittled by my own family. I was alone and ultimately I completely shut down and I didn’t leave my bed for almost a month (which happened on a few occasions). My boyfriend, bless his heart, has stood by me through the good, bad, and the ugly. As time has passed, I decided to move out to live on my own at 17 years old. I’m having better days but I still have my down days. I still can’t sleep at night but I’m pushing through it all.

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Growing up I was always the last person for everything. I have moved around a lot so I have never been able to keep any friends. I can remember every single name of all my friends but I am always forgotten. Everyone sees a smile and happy person but really I feel as if everyone around me is fake. They claim to be your real friend but they are not. They stab you in the back. You are this old toy being pushed out by a new toy. It feels as if I am not really a person but just an object that is only wanted when I am needed to do the dirty work.

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Through middle school and a good part of high school I had a really hard time with my own self image and I suffered with an eating disorder. This lead to a lot of my health problems and missing school and it still affects my health a lot today. Even today I still have to watch myself because it is really easy to slip back into bad habits and it can be very difficult to manage everything in my life and still care about me.

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Ever since I was a kid most of my family members have struggled with depression. As I've grown into a young adult, I've developed both anxiety and depression disorders. For a while, it was seriously controlling my everyday life and my social activities. I've had to face debilitating anxiety attacks and have had to make my self search for reasons to talk to people or even come to school. My attendance used to be horrible. Over the past year, I've gotten help and found medicine that helps me control my feelings and makes life a little easier. I have found someone to talk with, and have made a support team full of people i love and who love me. I struggle with the relationships I have with my family members. Every day that I face can be a challenge, but I'm trying. That's all I really can do.

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My family has always struggled with depression. Because of how rough growing up was I guess it had an affect on me. Since freshmen year it's been a constant battle with depression anxiety and self worth. I sacrifice a lot for everyone around me, without asking for anything in return. Not many people know how much I truly care. Well my sophomore year was the toughest. I never told anyone about how much I struggled. I'd mention it but I never delve into the real issues. I kept it all to myself because I never wanted to feel like a burden. I have always had to be the strong one in my family. My parent's didn't parent so I had to step up. I had to be the super upbeat and happy one to help my family. I still do it, even when I'm having a tough day. I'm doing it now haha. Anyway, I guess I don't know how to talk about it. But I got involved in some pretty bad stuff. Such as self harm and there were many days where I contemplated suicide. I never attempted it, It's a selfish decision and only passes on the pain. But as soon as you start struggling with depression it's like cloud that drains your energy. You never know when it's going to show up again.

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I have been diagnosed with both depression and anxiety disorders, and whenever I hit my low points I always feel guilty as if my feelings aren't valid because I've had a fairly privileged life.

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I have never been diagnosed with depression, but it was a temporary stage in my life. It comes and goes, and it started at the beginning of last school year. My parents would never understand why I would be depressed; they just told me to change the way I think, when they were the ones to cause the onset of it.

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My sister once tried to take her own life over her boyfriend that she had been with since she was thirteen. She downed a bottle of Advil. But she was taken to the hospital before it was too late, and luckily she puked everything out of her system. She was in Willowbrooke for a week. But she got over her boyfriend, and she has moved on from that part of her life. She now has an almost one year old daughter. (: She's never been happier.

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Between 2007-2012, my mother struggled with depression and abused anti depressants upon the divorce of her and my father. She would never let me go outside or play with my siblings. Sometimes she would sleep for days in a row. It got to the point where she has attempted many times to risk her life. Me and my brother hardly saw each other and would talk to each other through the crack of her bedroom door. I still feel as if I never had the childhood that other kids had due to the fact that i would be in bed with my mother all day. My family was very conservative and did not believe that mental illnesses could take a toll on people's lives until she went to a doctor and they diagnosed her with depression. She eventually got help and she's a completely changed woman now. People meet her and would never think she was the person she used to be before. I'm still lucky that she is my mother, because i can speak to her about issues like this. She understands me and lets me take mental health days when i am stressed. Im beyond blessed that she recieved help.

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My dad's side of the family suffers from severe anxiety, while my mom's side suffers from depression. I ended up getting both. My anxiety used to be crippling and it would be so hard to get out of bed and come to school, and would affect my relationships. I am medicated now for both anxiety and depression, and I am doing much better, but there are still hard days where being around people is the last thing I feel like I can do.

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When I lost my f

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For many years I have dealt with depression and anxiety. It runs in my family, and it feels like a cloud that constantly hovers over you. These have led to eating disorders, but thankfully I overcame that and I'm happy with my body now. A traumatic event that happened in my life 2 years ago only made these things worse, but I have coped and accepted this. I am now happy and I definitely think mental illness needs to be discussed in this country.

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My mother was diagnosed with Anxiety and a mild form of depression soon after mine and my sister's birth. She is now medicated for both and it genetic because me and my grandma have it. I'm not crazy though. People seem to think that means I'm crazy especially those in my family that don't understand it. We all take medication for it and it makes me seem very mellow and calm than naturally I would be.
Ny sister was addicted to diet pills for years and got down to an extremely low weight during a rough time in her life. Luckily she is okay now but at some points she still has doubts. All of us in our family keep our weight very low so I am not surprised she struggled with that.
I have had a couple of family members dwell into self harm and while I personally have not, we know it is.a touchy subject especially In our family.

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8th grade year my best friend died in a very bad car accident and my parents and his parents blamed me. About a month later I was diagnosed with depression and my parents didn't really try to help me until I got into the medicine cabinet and just started taking pills. I took pills that I had no idea what they did and started swallowing them like candy.I didn't want to go through any trouble or disappoint them any more so I thought that would be the best way to take care of it all and I thought to myself " I might as well become part of all the death that is happening around me." I still have some side effects of the medications I took all together at once but they have mostly stopped.

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I started struggling with OCD about a year ago and it has been the worst year I have ever had. OCD is not organization or just wanting to be clean, it is so, so much more complicated. It's like not being abIe do normal life things because you are so invested in one worry. It takes over your life. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

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it has become the normal feeling

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Depression and anxiety are both very present in my family and my life. Older family members ignore it and treat it like a personality trait, but the younger members of our family understand the importance of talking and getting treatment.

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I have had a handful of friends attempt/ actually kill themselves. One friend I had went to the top of a building at Ga State and jumped off and no one knows why. Others have had issues with self harm, etc.

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this is one thing I have struggled with over the past few months

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My sister has bipolar disorder and depression and was diagnosed a year ago. She also has a lot of anxiety. It has changed our lives a lot. We have to be sensitive to her thoughts and feelings more so than usual. My mom is also clinically depressed and has struggled for many years.

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Mental Illness has control over many family members in my life. Even though I suffer from it, I feel that it needs to be acknowledged

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My mom has bipolar as well as a small case of ocd. Depression runs in the family and has effected me a lot too. I used to and do slightly still deal with an eating disorder

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Between a split family, and an abusive mother,  things never seem to get better..

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Depression runs in my family

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Both of my parents have been diagnosed with anxiety and depression and have been medicated for it. It makes certain things harder, but we do overcome it. I struggled with both of these during and after their divorce. The feelings come and go, and I am experiencing it right now. Sometimes I am good; other times I am not. It is crazy how many people are affected, and it hurts my heart.

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I was diagnosed with depression in 7th grade, which begun after I had went through a rather traumatic experience. The December of my 7th grade year, i was raped by an older man. Thankfully I reported it immediately after I had gotten away from him, and he was immediately found and put behind bars (his trial was a year later in which he was given 10 years and 2 years probation). However this did not stop the event from effecting me in a negative way. My parents stressed upon me that I could talk to them about anything, but when something like that happens to you, you cant help but feel like you are at fault somehow, like you caused it in some form or fashion. This makes it exceptionally hard to talk about the event, because you feel so guilty. This only fed into my depressive symptoms, and I didn't really get help until my pediatrician sent me to a specialist 2 years later. The specialist diagnosed me with bipolar depression (manic depression) and recommended a therapist. After half a year of counseling i was able to make a partial recovery without any medication. My parents coulnd't afford to keep sending me to the therapist nor could they afford the co-pay on the medications i would need, so for the time being I manage my symptoms. It's not that bad seeing that with manic depression there are ups and downs, but some days are especially tough, making everything seem pointless and I loose enjoyment in the things i usually love to do most. The main reason I've been able to manage it so well, though, is my amazing set of friends, and my friends' parents. They are the most supportive people I have in my life at the moment. Given the circumstances I am blessed to have the people in my life that I do

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My twin brother has as-burgers which is a form of autism. He is not very severe, but he does still have it. He is extremely smart and has been gifted his whole life. However his social skills are not as developed as his peers. When he was a toddler he struggled a lot and would get so frustrated and throw tantrums and it was hard watching it when we were little. The medicine the doctor would prescribe him would never work so my parents took him off of it. Sometimes he struggles with depression because he knows he's different. However he has come such a long way and now you can't even tell he has as-burgers unless he tells you or you spend all your time with him.

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My mother was officially diagnosed with bipolar when I was like 1. It's genetic and she was worried it would show up in my brother and I. My brother has the anger and aggression part of bipolar and I ended up with the depression.