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Words by Anonymous I’ve been depressed for most of my life. I think I started getting symptoms around the age of eight. I grew up in an environment without talking about or acknowledging what mental health was. That’s how it was in farming communities. You just didn’t talk about mental health until someone committed suicide. But the talking about it only stays till the funeral is over, then back to how it is typically. I didn’t come to the realization that I had a mental health issue till I was at the age of fourteen, nearly fifteen. I was living away from home at boarding school then, but by then, I had tried to take my life twice. I later, at age seventeen, finally got help when my first relationship was getting too much for me to handle alone. I feared finally getting help instead of ignoring it as everyone at home did. It was drilled into me as a kid, ‘be a man’ and such. How could I have known any different? No one really talked about it with me or anyone else, and the lasting effects are that I’m still scared to talk to people and try to make new friends.