This morning, like usual, I woke up and went down to the library to use the WiFi. This morning, like usual, I sat in a comfy chair near the window, and checked my Facebook. This morning, not like usual, I scrolled through Facebook statuses to see that a member of my high school graduating class had passed. According to multiple sources, it was a suicide.
That was something that I was shocked to hear. I guess I was expecting something else. A car accident, injuries from sports, something that killed teenage boys who were popular athletes. That's what my former classmate was: a popular guy, nice enough, who played football and ran track. He had lots of friends, and I had never really heard a bad thing about him, even though any interaction between the two of us had been limited. Then I realized that that was exactly the issue: because he was popular, I assumed that he didn't have any problems like the ones I've been struggling with for several years.
In my town, as with many other small towns, popular people aren't necessarily viewed as "people," but rather as characters with scripted interpersonal drama that only serves to make mundane life in suburbia bearable or interesting. They were just like the characters on those shows that are like soap operas for teens, just more accessible. But just because they were there didn't make them people in our minds, and it was hard to see them as human beings. They don't have issues, not like the rest of us. Depression and anxiety and suicidal feelings were for those of us who weren't cool.
That high school belief, however, is not only problematic, but also deadly. No one really knows who they are in high school, and so when you're cast into a box, you feel the need to completely fit in the box. It's exhausting and counterproductive, but the status quo is what matters. When you get cast into the prized box of "cool kid," you have to be that person. Your depression and anxiety and inner pain doesn't matter, and you have to repress it as best as you can, bottling it in because you can't be the person that has mental illnesses.
I don't know if that's what happened to my classmate, who I'm not going to name out of respect for him and his family. I don't know what he dealt with. What I do know is that we don't think about people enough. We expect them to fit in these boxes without wondering how they feel. And we assume that people who are popular or have it all can't be depressed like the rest of us. Suicide is for everyone.
