Hi all,

This's my first (other than welcome) post here. If this is in the wrong section, then please accept my apology; I wasn't too sure where to put this...

The reason I'm posting this, is to hopefully get some advice, and to see if somebody else have experienced (some of) the same. I've never spoken to anybody about my issues, so if my wording is weird, I'm sorry. I'm 16 years of age (male), but please don't judge me by that.

I will try to keep it brief, and to the point.

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I feel so "closed in" on myself. Like my real personality (the one I feel I am inside) is closed/trapped inside me, and I'm not able to express it through my outer body (or something like that).

It's closely related to my other problem, which is about emotions and mood. I have "deep" emotions which stay in me for a long time, and vary depending on my life situation, and what affects me in life. I can't truly identify what exactly causes these, nor exactly what they are, so I just label them with single words.

Other than that, we have everyday emotions; I can easily identify when I'm happy (delighted) or sad (depressed), but anything else (in the middle) is so dynamic and unclear that I don't what it is. Else, I may feel nothing at all.

I can have just as a strong emotional response to situations as anybody else, but I fail to express it. That leads to me to "faking" a smile, laugh or whatever.

And when I generally fail to naturally express emotions in a personal way, it really hurts inside.

Another thing, are my intense mood swings (daily/hourly), which make things only worse. I can go from feeling just "fine" in general, or ecstatic, to basically feeling depression himself. My mood is quite fragile and easily affected, and can change several times throughout the day. More frequently, I've started getting panic attacks as well, where I just want to freaking run away. I rarely cry, but I cry inside when such happens. It's like an infinite cycle which may change spinning direction at any time. I've thought several times that I was over this, but then it suddenly strikes me again. It scares me, because I know it will happen sooner or later when I don't expect it. There're other things like doubt/certainty which may change by the minute as well.

All this... I'm certain it's not just some natural variable, as I've had it all my life; developing to the worse. I don't know what's causing this.

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Has anybody else here had any similar experiences? Any advice?

I would highly appreciate any response!