"What's depression like?" He asked.

Growing up too fast.

So here I am. Sitting behind my laptop, playing Real Friends, drinking coffee and trying to clean up the mess in my mind. 

This is probably going to be a little bit of an all-over chapter. I think I can write one of those every once in a while. To clean out my thoughts. 

First of all, I want to thank everyone for their kind words as I was offline. I was feeling pretty down and needed some time to get over the worst part. I think I am now, so I decided it was time for a chapter.

I had a certain subject in my head that I wanted to write about for a long time after I'd spoken about it with a friend on Wattpad. I wanted to write about growing up too fast. I think there's more than one of you that have experienced this and know how confusing it is to see everyone around you complain about ordinary teeange things and not care.

To listen to your friends whine about their shoes not matching their dress, not having the newest iPhone, not having the coolest friends and just not care. To think to yourself: why are you complaining? And I've had that for a very long time. Ever since my depression started to creep into my life I've listened to people complain about things that just didn't seem important to me.

This got a lot worse when my best friend died because of suicide. I just couldn't care about what people labelled as "problems". I couldn't worry about teenage problems myself. I didn't care about the newest phones or the newest clothing or where I belonged. All I cared about what trying to get up in the morning, get through the day and trying to sleep at night. 

I start isolating myself a lot. Simply because I couldn't listen to other people's complaining anymore. It pissed me off so much. To hear how ungrateful they were. How "unhappy" for having everything I'd ever wished for.

All I'd ever wished for was a family that loved me, friends that never left, being happy. I got one of them for a big part. I have my friends and they never leave me, no matter how bad it got. I never got a loving family and until today I haven't been able to feel fully happy. 

It's the simple things that I wish that were right, but never seemed to go right in my life whiles other people whined on about irrelevant things that I couldn't wrap my mind around. Why was it such a big deal that your parents didn't let you go to a party? Why was it such a big deal that this popular guy didn't like you back? Why was it such a big deal that all your friends smoked and you never had money for cigarettes? Why was it such a big deal that you weren't allowed to buy alcohol?

I thought about all these people sitting in my room, smoking and drinking on my own. Crying, hurting myself on the outside because I felt so god damn lost. I had no idea what to do, I had no idea where to go. I gave up on life. And again. And again. And these people kept whining about their clothing and "status" and needing to like the same things as this one person because this one person was "popular" and they had to be "popular". 

I didn't smoke because I thought it was cool. I didn't drink because I thought it made me interesting. I didn't hurt myself because I tried to get the attention from the "popular" people. I did everything for a complete different reason than the students in my class. I did it because I was a complete mess inside and needed something to numb the pain. 

I have not learned to handle things differently since. I am trying, but changing habits is the hardest thing there is.

And these people are still whining. 

And it doesn't piss me off as much anymore as it used to.

Why? Because I've realized something very important: these people weren't doing anything wrong. They were being teenagers. I was supposed to complain about the exact same things as they were complaining about, but I never could, because I never got to be a teenager. At least not the carefree teenager whose biggest problem is not getting what he wants. 

It does bother me that I grew up so fast. That I could never compare my problems to other people's problems and that way felt so alone. That I felt so pissed off at these people for whining about things I should whine about, but never could because I'd experienced things so, so much worse than not getting new sneakers for my birthday.

Of course, as you get older and leave High School (which I almost have) problems start matching your age. Like not being able to get yourself financially stable, which is a problem I can actually talk about with a lot of people. I'm glad that the older you get, the more people realize how irrelevant most things are.

I guess it's about what you go through at what age. Some people get punched in the face by reality at a very young age and never get the chance to be young. Other people realize it at a later age, when they see that the world isn't as small as they thought it was. 

I hope you are all coping at the moment. That you're all getting through the day in better ways than I am. That you soon don't have to find a way to get through the day, because the day doesn't seem so bad anymore. All of you deserve that. 

I would also again like to thank you all for you kindness. You're all very good people and I am very grateful to know you. For all of you and for my friends, I will try to keep finding ways to get through the day.

- Kyran