But when people share, they often discover that others have experienced similar feelings and concerns. To that end, Newmen encourages students to talk with their families. "That in itself can be therapeutic because any kind of secret that has a sense of shame to it is harmful." Openness also combats depression's feeling of isolation, which is similar to that experienced with eating disorders. The parallels don't end there. Having another mental disorder, like an eating disorder, increases the risk of depression.

Sometimes I just can't imagine what it would be like to be happy," said one first-year student, who became anorexic her freshman year of high school and progressed into severe depression. By junior year her depression had led to social withdrawal, cutting and self-hatred. "I felt as though I deserved to suffer because I couldn't achieve perfection in any form," she said.

Slim and blond, with a friendly and likeable manner, she also seemed troubled and vulnerable as she told her story. Depression made it difficult to focus, she said, ended some friendships and eventually changed her whole way of living. "A lot of times it would help to bury myself in my schoolwork and focus on academics, but other times it was just impossible to do anything," she said.

She began seeing a pediatrician who specialized in eating disorders, as well as a psychologist and a psychiatrist, in the spring of her junior year in high school, after friends sent anonymous e-mails of concern to her mother. With antidepressants and therapy her mental health improved, but she hasn't put depression in her past yet.

"Adjusting here makes a lot of symptoms come back," she said. "I'd like to put it behind me, but at the same time it becomes almost a way of life. You never know when it's coming, but it always comes back. It's the same thing with the eating disorder aspect of it. I just have to wait it out and try to hang on."

She is considering meeting with a Colby counselor to talk. She says it's hard to know whom she can open up to and has noticed the way people joke about or dismiss her illness.

"It's a taboo thing, but it's something that shouldn't have to be. A lot more people could get the help they need if people weren't so afraid of it," she said. "It takes a certain person, but being open is the best thing you can do."

This student is that "certain person." For the speech required of each senior at her high school, she spoke openly to the entire student body about her own sufferings with depression, anorexia and self-mutilation. After the speech some classmates shied away from her honesty and even her closest friends didn't know what to say. "It made me feel uncomfortable that even after I tried to be open, it was still too un-politically correct to address openly," she said.

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