you know that group of friends in high school that shared a lunch table and spent practically every Friday night together?
you know, the cool kids, the populars, the jocks, the brains, the floaters (who got in with everyone), the good-ats? I wasn’t one of them. I was the one all those kids labeled a loser.
the loners, refugees and stoners – they were the kids that kind of got me. we used to get into trouble together and bummed joints off of each other after school.
I tried fronting – you know, trying to seem normal, to do the things the so-called normals were doing, to blend into the social scene. as a defense mechanism, it made a lot of sense. and I was rewarded for hiding myself, for a little while.
but I couldn’t keep it up, I couldn’t keep it together. I couldn’t keep functioning that way. then one day I officially fell apart. the professionals said it was some kind of emotional suicide. pretending to be something you’re not is a straight line to there. all I knew about it at 15 was that I was more than sad.
the biggest lie about depression is that depressed people look and act sad all the time – and that people who look and act happy aren’t experiencing depression, even if they say they are.
it’s pretty hard to tell from the outside when I’m in that place. I play my instruments. I sing for other people. I make jokes. I go out for pizza. I walk on the beach. I hug my mom. I pray and thank God for whatever I’ve got. I’m not walking around looking or acting miserable. when I hate myself and I want to die, I post, I get on my skateboard and I ride away – even though as I ride, I am still in a dark place.
I’m not afraid to sing about the heavy subjects, you know, sadness, isolation, pain, insecurity. but there’s this weird conflicting feeling I have when people watch me sing. it’s like, I look alright, pretty chill, even slightly happy, and they’re looking at me like, why aren’t you performing sad? it’s like, if I’m not displaying deep, entrenched sadness or something, talking about how miserable my life is between songs, I’m not really depressed. WTF.
pretty much the only place this doesn’t happen is at group because people there know that each moment of each day is a struggle for me.
even when I look and act happy, I am still fighting the monster. even when I don’t appear suitably, certifiably depressed, I’m still fighting.
cookie nieves 
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