I have a good life. I have my share of ups and downs. But over all I live a content and fulfilling life. Sure I get sad sometimes. I feel like life is problem producing machine, but I get over it. But what about those who don’t? I think one of the biggest battles teenagers face growing up is depression. Not just for themselves. But also looking around them and seeing other people be depressed. Environment is an important part of anyone’s life and when teenage depression rates are alarmingly high, they are guaranteed to soar higher. But is depression being welcomed instead of being shooed away? Are we embracing this disease that plagues us? Is depression the new cool? Is the idea of being in a dark lonely place romanticised  Because I have made a startling discovery. Depression is ugly.

I think some people are enamoured with the idea of depression. People think it’s romantic to self harm when your girlfriend or boyfriend fights with you. They think it’s love if you pine away by not eating, starving or cutting. Just so you can say, “ I was so heart broken that I slit my wrist.” This idea is getting popular. It’s the best way to cope; by guilt tripping. But love is not about guilt.

It’s become fashionable to be depressed. It’s the latest trend. But when you shiver from the touch of the cool blade, when it slices across your milky wrist and you see blood emerge. Then it stings, like wasps are devouring you, and then you realize how pathetic what you’ve done is. You’ve unleashed a hound, who is going to take over your senses. You think you’re sacrificing for love. But love isn’t cutting yourself to make the other person writhe in guilt when you tell them, to cover them in mud, staining them with the blood you let out. That is not love. It’s mockery to those who have felt pain and loneliness, and compared to that agony self harm feels like pure bliss.  That is pain. And people suffer everyday. And to want that kind of suffering because the movies and the books show it, is not romantic. There is nothing romantic about pain. Those people need help, and they need love and affection. They’re in a dark place from where we need to pull them back. Not try to join them. Because where we are is a better place than where they are.

“You think I am doing this for show? You think I cut so that I can show the world? ”

Yes

“No thats not what I am saying. I'm saying this is not a trend.”

“I know it's not. You don't understand the feeling, the frustration. It's in the heat of the moment. You just don't understand.”

No, you don't understand.

“I'm sure you feel upset. But cutting is a cold and calculated step. It's not in the heat of the moment.”

“I know. I don't cut anymore. I punch walls.”

This guy is crazy.

How does something become a trend? How does something as negative as self-harm become a trend? What is the psychology behind it? Why is it this way? Everybody talks about how “they” have problems. How “their” life is horrible. How nothing goes right for “them”. How unlucky “they” are?

The truth is that people who’re the most selfish, the most involved with themselves are the ones who resort to self-pity. Two things attract a great deal of attention. The first is success and the second is tragedy.

If you have a “sad life” and tell everyone you have a sad life., they’ll listen. But the tragedy in this tragedy is that everyone else is way too involved in themselves to give anyone else more than just a glance. Ours is very self-absorbed generation. What will we do for the world if we can’t do for our friends? When you are your only focus. The way you look, the number of friends you have, the things you can do, the way you see yourself, the way others see you, the way others treat you, the  way you look and the way you look.

And the worst part about this is the kind of message that goes out to people who are actually suffering from clinical depression. How can we lighten something so heavy? Why are we insulting those who suffer? Because tell me what is message that goes out when a drop of blood falls on the carpet?