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  • About a month ago today, I sat on the edge of my hospital bed,

  • and I asked myself the simple question, "Why?"

  • I had worked for years to be where I was,

  • a young social activist, who co-created two successful non-profit organizations,

  • a good student, and an even better friend,

  • and a girl who never lacked positivity nor energy.

  • I asked myself why I had ignored what was going on in my head for so long,

  • simply to maintain this reputation.

  • I had already accomplished so much in my life,

  • when strange things began happening to me.

  • When even though I was incredibly academically motivated in the past,

  • I couldn't seem to do homework,

  • and I removed myself from friends, and I didn't answer my phone for a week,

  • and I refused to go to school,

  • and getting out of my bed in the morning seemed impossible.

  • Now, looking back,

  • I realize that I had to redefine what success was.

  • Because if everything I'd done in my life, leading up to that point,

  • deemed me successful, why was I siting in the hospital?

  • I realize that my ability to find this new normal,

  • my ability to adapt to this new-found empathy,

  • that's what makes me successful.

  • Being got diagnosed with clinical depression

  • is what it took for me to realize what success was.

  • Though I could go on, I'm not here to simply tell you all about my story.

  • I am here to tell you why I think this is happening not only to me

  • but to a dangerous number of teenagers in this country.

  • A statistic that is increasing every year

  • and why each one of you needs to advocate for programs and schools for teens that are suffering from depression and anxiety.

  • Depression in our society is not obvious

  • when walking down the street or the hallway,

  • but simply open your laptops, your smartphones, your tablets,

  • and do maybe one Google search, and you'll be blown away.

  • After my one Google search,

  • I found that after a study conducted in this spring,

  • 1.6 million Tumblr blogs were examined,

  • and of those, 200,000 contained pictures, videos, and text posts of teenagers hurting themselves due to depression.

  • Is it because we now have the technology to express an ever-present feeling

  • or is it something greater?

  • Is it just a coincidence

  • that school systems and standardized tests are getting harder

  • and college acceptance rates are going down,

  • and the pressures to be stereotypical men or women are everywhere?

  • Is it possible that we, that this society,

  • is the thing responsible for the increasing of disease that is more than capable of killing?

  • And we don't talk about it much

  • because it's often deemed a phase or hormones, or being overemotional.

  • Oftentimes, conversations regarding mental illnesses, such as depression,

  • result in words being thrown around that are nearly irrelevant.

  • Depression is not the emotion sadness.

  • Depression is a state of being below neutrality.

  • Sadness is an emotion that comes and goes just as happiness does.

  • My biggest pet peeve is when someone comes up to you and says something along the lines of:

  • "I'm sorry, I was just depressed earlier, I'm so depressed right now."

  • Depression does not just come and go, it's there.

  • And it is the third largest cause of death among teenagers in this country.

  • 4,400 kids commit suicide a year,

  • and for everyone of those, at least 100 attempt.

  • So now, I am standing here asking you all

  • the same simple question I asked myself when I was in the hospital: "Why?"

  • But this time it's: "Why we are not doing more to prevent this?"

  • My school has a Bridge program for kids

  • that are transitioning in from an extended absence.

  • Many of us have suffered from severe depression and severe anxiety,

  • and many of us say that the program has saved our lives

  • because it puts our mental health first.

  • How can we be expected to be successful in life

  • and go to a good college, and have a good career,

  • if the pressure is too overwhelming, and we don't even finish high school?

  • "Bridge" talks to our parents, our teachers,

  • anyone we need to know what is going on in order to help us cope.

  • The Bridge team consists of an academic coordinator

  • who has the weirdest taste in music,

  • like this guy is either listening to Bob Marley or like, tribal music,

  • there is really none in between.

  • We have a mental health specialist who is obsessed with mini butterfingers.

  • An intern who is insanely good at bananagrams,

  • and another intern who, though is very smart and goes to Harvard,

  • has yet to advance pass two songs in the guitar this year.

  • But, even so, these four people have become a both necessary and life changing asset

  • in mine and other Bridge students' lives.

  • I'm here today to ask you all a quick favor, a quick favor to advocate to schools,

  • advocate to your school boards for these programs.

  • Because when I was in the mental hospital,

  • I met a girl, we can call her Jane,

  • and Jane had been there for weeks,

  • and I had never met someone who understood what I was going through,

  • and now I thought that she felt the exact pain, had the exact fear as me,

  • she had been there for weeks,

  • it was her third hospitalization and her school had no support for her.

  • I told her about Bridge and she was blown away

  • that something like that existed.

  • We shouldn't have to wait for these statistics to get higher,

  • and the number of teens to skyrocket,

  • because if we have the power to raise 100 million dollars in a month for ALS,

  • we have the power to advocate to schools for programs.

  • I'm in the process of creating another non-profit organization,

  • of which provides schools with the funding necessary to create these programs for teens.

  • So please be on the lookout for that.

  • But in the meantime,

  • if you don't have depression or you don't know anyone who does,

  • advocate for the 10% to 15% of our society that are suffering from this disease.

  • We are so blessed to live in a country where our voices,

  • our voices are meant to be heard, and they actually mean something.

  • So, if just some of you, who listen to me talk today,

  • advocate to your school boards, and you beg, plead, demand that programs are set up,

  • and maybe you start a petition, and it's for school funded support,

  • whatever you do, just do something, the impact would be life changing.

  • Together, we can fight this disease that is controlling so many of us.

  • And if you're out there, and you're dealing with depression,

  • turn the energy that you have towards hatred for this awful thing into energy for change.

  • Because together we can fight back, and we can't let it win,

  • we can't let depression win anymore.

  • It's time to fight back.

  • Thank you.

About a month ago today, I sat on the edge of my hospital bed,

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