I never said I functioned, nor did I describe the severity of my symptoms. I just named three random things that I felt were by products of my depressive nature. I don't know how it is for other people who functioned normally through life and then was hit with a disorder of the mind that began to cripple their relationships and dampened the things they loved once before. I don't remember a time when my anxiety didn't make me apprehensive and scared of leaving my house every morning because I was afraid of what people would think of me as I walked through the streets, stand in the train, sit in class. My over- analysis, or more accurately my isolation of the world, has dampened all my friendships or possible friendships. I can't concentrate on much for too long and I never had a drive to succeed in anything except for the possibility of disappointing those around me. Irrational, probably, but that was/is my normal. I didn't realize this was dysfunctional until I went to college and realized how excluded I make myself and how I constantly feel uncomfortable and unworthy. So I can't really comment on the experiences of those that had a 'normal' spectrum of emotions, highs and lows, and then had the unfortunate circumstance of being hit by a disorder a way of feeling that is alien to them. But for me there is no other self than the one that was developed and ingrained in me while living through and with the symptoms of depression. So when a 'professional' tells me that in order for me to get 'better' I essentially need to become someone new person and they are unwilling to help me cope with the bad to bring out the good, it baffles me. This is my normal, I just want to learn how to make it less painful.