My friend suffered from depression a year and half ago. Thank god this story had a god ending, she's very happy and popular now. She's loved. 

Her parents had not meant to ignore her; they had meant to love her, and they did love her.  But while she was feeling as if a rope was tied to her ankle, pulling her down into the vast enormity of the black ocean, she strained to come up for a breath. The only one who could understand was her brother, who was going through the same thing at the time. Her parents loved them unconditionally, but they just didn’t know why their two children were so dejected.

One day when she was in seventh grade, she came home to her worn mother, she told her “not to make any noise, because Josh was upset.” Her mother’s eyes were red and she was on the verge of crying, so she didn’t question her and walked up the stairs and to her room. That night, she heard Josh crying in his room, for hours. She couldn’t help but to wonder if it was her fault. She thought maybe it was because she asked him to help him with her homework all of the time, or because she “sucked” at volleyball. Months went by and he routinely came downstairs to get the pills from the orange canisters. Eighth grade came along. The bad days lasted longer than the good ones. One night she sat in her room, and was wondering why she was so miserable. She thought about Josh, and why she felt like such a failure; she felt like a loser, she thought her friends hated her. “When thoughts like that get in your head, it gets noisy in there.” She sat there, breathing heavily. “Why can’t I be normal.. Why can’t I be normal?!” She repeatedly asked herself and finally broke down in tears. She ran downstairs to Josh and shook him. “Help! I don’t want to be angry anymore. What’s going on!? I don’t like being like this, I hate it!” He grabbed his little sister and took her up to her room. They sat on her bed. “Hold my hands,” he said. She grabbed them, her’s were a puddle by then. He told her all about why he had depression, who he thought was the love of his life, had broken up with him. He knew what she was going through. Josh slept beside his little sis, his only sis.

She was broken. The bug in her head had taken over. The next day, she didn’t go to school. Her mother walked in from work and asked her what she was doing home. She grabbed her phone and said “who’s hurting you?! I’m going to crush your phone under a tire!” She looked at her mother. She gave her the same look she did when Emma asked what happened to Josh months ago. Her mother was clueless and beat. “No One! I don’t think I can see another day. I’m beat, Ma… I’m beat,” tears rolling down her tan face. Her mom took her to the hospital. Emma got enlisted in a week-long program for teens with depression. The first day she walked in, she thought they were going to be the lanky freaks she’d seen in movies. Maybe they were. With the red and purple hair and the scars on their wrists. They were  much more than “freaks.” They colored together, cried together, laughed together and were mad at the world with each other. The last day of “camp,” she said her goodbyes to her new friends. She went to the doctor and got diagnosed with Bipolar 2 disorder. The orange bottles that were so familiar to her brother were now hers. She kept them in her dresser drawer.

Now it’s Sophomore year and her life completely flip-flopped within a year and a half. She went from the lowest point in her life, to prospering. “I forget I’m bipolar, I take medication but sometimes I forget because i’m too happy and caught up that it’s not that demanding to me, I just live to see another day and because I want to this time.” Most say Emma is popular. She is, she’s loved by many friends, she’s the last person you’d question their well being. Not only did Emma’s life flip, so did Josh’s. Currently he’s making it big in the music industry, producing merchandise for G Eazy and Logic. He was her rock, and they both came out thriving. The duo. The Colyer’s.