by Scott Choi

I played many different sports in high school. I played basketball, baseball, and I also
went skiing quite often. These sports really helped me to become mentally and physically
healthy throughout my life. I enjoyed playing sports, and there were a lot of things I have learned
by playing sports throughout the years. Sports are one thing that helps me to stay mentally and
physically healthy today. If I didn’t stay physically active throughout my life, I might be dealing
with depression, obesity, or any other illness. I now know that I have dealt with
depression back in the day now that I look back at my life. I didn’t really tell anybody when I
was feeling down or when I was feeling sad. I would sometimes stay in my room and do nothing
for an extended period of time. I would skip a couple of meals per day because I did not feel like eating
that day. I also would distance myself from everybody and did not talk to anybody for a period of
time. However, I never went to therapy or a doctor to see if I had depression or any kind of
mental illness. I just dealt with these situations by finding hobbies like playing sports. I did not
think of depression as a big deal in the past, but now I know that it is a common problem,
and it needs to be dealt with. I would have had a better life growing up if I knew that I was
dealing with this mental illness instead of just ignoring the problem. There are other people in
this world that might not know that they have depression, and some people might still be
suffering because they could not find a way to cope with their emotions and mental health as I
did with physical activity. Some people might be ignoring or hiding the fact that they are dealing
with depression. However, depression should be dealt with immediately.

What is depression? Depression is a mental illness that makes one feel down or puts a
person in a bad mood. Many things could cause depression. Depression could be caused by
problems in real-life situations such as the death of a family member or friend, breaking up with
you’re your loved one, being lonely, being poor, and there are many more issues that could cause
depression. Depression could be cured by a therapist, medications, or finding things that make
you happy in life. There is no definite cure for depression yet. There are many people in this
world who deals with depression nowadays. There are about 3.2 million US teenagers who
are dealing with depression. About 16.1 million US adults deal with depression (adaa.org).
Also, there are many people that are dealing with this illness that does not share the information
with anybody or get diagnosed by a doctor. Therefore, it is a very difficult task to get the exact
number of people with depression, but even without all the reported cases, anybody can tell that
depression is a very common mental illness in the United States. I can’t imagine how many
people in this world are dealing with depression, and they are going unnoticed because they
just like keeping things to themselves or don’t have anybody to talk to, or can’t find a way to deal
with stress and emotion. I really want to help these people who are dealing with depression and
haven’t even figured out that they even have depression. Even though depression is a very
common illness in the United States, there are also many actions that we could take to help
people deal with depression.

There are many outside organizations that are finding ways to help those with
depression. Out of many organizations, ADAA is an organization that has caught my eyes to help
me find ways to reduce the number of depressions in the United States. ADAA is an acronym for
Anxiety and Depression Association of America (adaa.org). ADAA collects data on how many people deal with mental illness in America. ADAA also encourages and supports students to
pursue their careers in many professional mental health institutions. ADAA is an organization that
has been working on solving mental illnesses such as depression, PTSD, and anxiety (adaa.org).
They have been researching a way to cure and prevent all these mental illnesses from happening.
ADAA has found a couple of easy solutions to prevent depression from happening. They believe that
talking about an individual’s problem and not carrying all the burden yourself will help with
depression (adaa.org). Anxiety and Depression association also believes that physical activity
could really help with your mental state (adaa.org). ADAA is going to help me find ways to
prevent depression and help me find ways to help those that haven’t figured out that they are
dealing with depression.

ADAA website offers many ways to help you with your depression and help others with
depression. If you are really interested in helping people with depression or any kind of mental
illness, you could go to this website, and you could donate money to help ADAA find more cures
and medication for depression or any kind of mental illness (adaa.org). People with depression
really need your help and it will be a big help to them if everybody could donate about 10
dollars towards ADAA’s research. Also, if you believe that you are dealing with
depression, the ADAA website also offers a way for you to find a therapist (adaa.org). This could be
a really big help if you are struggling to find a way talk to someone or struggling to find a way to
deal with your mental state. This could be a big opportunity to find a way to help others or find a
way to help yourself. Everybody should be supporting ADAA for the good of the people
living in the United States.

Resources:

Facts and Statistics. adaa.org
Find a Therapist. adaa.org
Support ADAA and Help. adaa.org