I'm 16 years old and my best friend is my cousin. She lives about 2 hours from me but we talk on the phone and online quite often. We have so many things in common except one thing: she was brought up to believe that doctors can't do squat, chiropractors are god, and medicine is for wimps.

I am the exact opposite of this. I myself am actually a bit of a hypochondriac and if it were up to me instead of my mom I'd be at the doctor every week. Besides that, I also think I may have depression and recently also I think I may have a social anxiety problem (my awkwardness is literally ruining my life). I've never verbalized my question about depression to anyone in real life, but last night after I got home from a party in which I stood in a corner all night in fear of being laughed at, I made a post on a blog site about Social Anxiety Disorder. I looked up the definition and bolded the things that applied to me. My cousin replied to the post saying, "You know I can't not reply to this. This is BS, everyone has these problems even me. Doctors just make this stuff up to get your money."

Now I try not to let her get to me usually, but this really hurt. The depression (which I now am certainly never going to tell her about) I think is very real to me and I'm working on telling my parents. I don't doubt that it's real. But the social issues now. I'm having all sorts of second thoughts.

I don't want to try to talk to her about it. She's headstrong and it is impossible to negotiate with her. But how do I ignore it? Has anyone else ever faced someone like this? How did you deal with it?