Adolescence By Day

I can't tell you how much it bothers me when people equate being emo with depression. Emo is a genre of music, a style, it's not a mental disorder. You can choose to be emo. When you're depressed, you have no choice in what you feel. It's like an insidious little bug that will crawl through your mind and leave a slimy trail of sadness and anger wherever it goes.

When I was first "diagnosed" with depression, I told a few of my close friends. I really wanted to tell someone, but I knew that it shouldn't be spread around. I was surprised and maybe a little hurt when a couple of my friends said something equivalent to "So you're emo now?" That was so utterly wrong I didn't know where to begin to refute it, not that they would've cared anyhow.

I have friends who are "emo." They honestly are some of the most happy, awesome people I know. They don't have such low self esteem that sometimes when they look in the mirror they can't help but cry. They don't think about how much better it would be if they weren't alive or in a state of consciousness. They don't have times when they won't eat anything because they think they are too fat to be loved. They don't have days where they don't think they have any friends at all. They won't sleep for fourteen hours and wake up still tired. They don't wonder if they are actually crazy because nothing makes them happy anymore.

So don't try to tell me I'm emo, or that emo is the same thing as depression. They aren't the same thing at all.