As a teenager growing up I don’t think I really understood what anxiety or depression was or looked like and I sure as hell wouldn’t admit to having either. I u

As a teenager growing up I don’t think I really understood what anxiety or depression was or looked like and I sure as hell wouldn’t admit to having either. I understood both academically, but no one wanted to call you anxious or depressed and you didn’t want anyone to call you that either. In retrospection, I was both anxious and depressed for most of high school. Going to therapy wouldn’t have been an option. Drugs wouldn’t have been an option, because depression and/or anxiety was not something you needed either to treat. It was a temporary state, at best, that you needed to shake yourself from. Mental illness is no longer stigmatized in the same way it was even a decade ago. It makes sense more kids are self-reporting feeling that way. I don’t think kids are all that different now. I don’t think things are so much worse for them. I do think school is probably more prison like than ever, but beyond that it is all the same stuff in a slightly different context.