Entering high school and being a freshman can be nerve-wracking for everyone. You're entering a new type of environment with, possibly, more than twice the number of people you've had to deal with before. Being the shy, little 12-year-old girl that I was, I had to make sure everything was perfect for the first day. My clothes, hair and demeanor were all what I thought was considered to be "cool." I walked into those big doors expecting to be greeted with new and significant life changes, but little did I know, it was going to be something that would haunt me up until now.

Being the youngest in the class is never easy. There's always going to be people trying to come up and tell you how "impressive" you are for being so young or how smart you are, and it feels like they are genuinely impressed or at least genuinely complimenting you. However, I always found that the people who were saying those things to me had just said it in order to mock me. When I began to realize this, I would take everything people said personally because it felt as though what I thought were my life achievements was just a joke to everyone else. I wasn't the bubbly and peppy Crystal that I used to be. Self-confidence issues developed causing me to compare myself to everyone around me. Food became unbearable because of how insecure I was of my body. One meal would be the most I could eat in a day. My anorexia got worse as the year went on. I had one friend who would always bug me about it, and that ended up just making me feel even worse. I just kept going farther down this spiral of destruction, and it felt like I was all on my own. The summer before my sophomore year I was able to fight my anorexia and I won.

Sophomore year came, and I felt better than ever. Tennis replaced starving myself, and it also became a stress reliever. Everything was going well, and I slowly gained back all my confidence (partially due to the fact that I was leaving my high school at the end of the year to join an early entrance program for college). My tennis team became a second family to me, and I felt like I finally had the support system that I had been needing and craving all freshman year. I had a group of friends who I knew accepted me for me, and it made me feel invincible. The summer after sophomore year was spent preparing for my junior year in high school/freshman year in college. I was so focused on getting all the stuff for the perfect dorm room and making sure that I was prepared to move 6 hours away from home. Being able to leave behind my past at my old high school and starting completely over was exciting and refreshing; however, everything that goes around must come back around.

My junior year started out better than I expected. At first, it was nerve-wracking because I didn't know anyone there, being that I came from a small town 6 hours away. I was still able to find a group of friends (my roommate and her two friends who came to TALH as well) that I immediately clicked with. However, minor waves of depression started hitting me throughout my fall semester, and eventually the depression consumed me. By the time I reached my spring semester, it felt almost as though I was a completely different person. I didn't socialize as much and kept to myself more, and I just never had the energy to do anything. At times I would feel so depressed that it would lead to self-harm. My best friend tried to get me help by making me go to the on-campus counselor, which helped at first, but was never enough. I even tried going to a therapist over the summer, but that ended up hurting me rather than helping me because that therapist just wasn't for me.

Since then, I've been dealing with not only the depression but I also developed a social anxiety. The anxiety was especially difficult during the beginning of my senior year because we got a new group of juniors in, and I had difficulty talking to them and getting to know them. My social anxiety has gotten better since then, and I can now approach people as long as I'm with someone that I know. During my senior year, my depression just seemed to be getting worse, and I would have severe emotional breakdowns that would be too much to handle sometimes. I had my best friends right by my side throughout all of this and I am forever grateful to every single one of them, even though some of them don't know what they have done to help me. It is now the summer after my senior year, and I am finally just now starting to get over my depression and anxiety.

This post isn't about getting pity or attention. Depression and anxiety is a serious problem that anyone can experience whether you are a generally optimistic person or an introvert. The stereotypes of depression aren't always true, and people need to realize that these problems can be applied to anyone. Depression isn't just a feeling you have some days. It is an actual mental health issue that needs to be treated. It is okay to tell someone about it. It is okay to have depression. You will be okay. I want to show people that even if you are going through depression and are on the verge of giving up that there's still a chance for you to get better. It may feel like you have absolutely nothing left, but one day you'll blossom into the beautiful flower you are meant to be. It just takes time.