Hi, I haven't posted in 2 years. A lot has happened, yet my depression is constant. I will discuss a broad range of problems that come together in a miserable combination, but the essence of it all is that I feel powerless over my life to every degree. No matter what I do, even small stuff, it doesn't affect the outcome.

To give you background about me, I developed a learning disability in early childhood, an uncommon one too. I've suffered from severe depression since I was 11. My parent were blatantly emotionally abusive and negligent. To note, my psychiatrist, therapist, and counselor have all explained to me there is a line between accidental poor parenting (everyone makes mistakes) and outright abuse. I had poor primary education (was home-schooled very poorly). I developed social anxiety, general anxiety, and panic attacks in my teens. I graduated college in December, but it took me 6 years to finish even though I started when I was 17. Now I'm 23, 24 in June, and have suffered from severe depression the majority of my life.

I have been active in my treatment and follow through with all treatment plans to the best of my ability. It's been a financial burden. One strategy I learned though is to try to look at situations and events objectively so that you can see it outside of depression's filtered glasses. It's hard but I try.

What wears me down though is the worlds utter heartless, selfish, and judgmental actions and attitudes. Even though there has been great progress in equal rights, legal protection, and policies, that doesn't stop public attitude, individual attitude, media disinformation, misconduct, discriminatory actions, and violation of rights. On top of that, it seems there is nothing I can do about it.

If its an illegal act against you, there has to be physical evidence to have a case which doesn't include a lot of interactions. There also has to be a lawyer that even cares, and that's if you can legally go to court over the matter. Then there's pop culture and the internet, and that shows peoples true colors. One minute they are on board against a horrible thing, but then forget about it the next day as if posting on social media solved the problem. Your life can also be ruined in an instant now and all it takes is someone with a phone recording a video or taking a picture of you, then you become a laughing stock or utterly despised.

Then there's crime. You can be robbed, stabbed, shot, or even falsely accused. You can be hit by a car due to someones reckless, uncaring driving even if you are driving 100% safe. You can lose your car and your insurance only pays 2/3rds of the cost. Sucks for you if you are poor. Also, there is an atrocious number deaths and injuries due to car wrecks each day!

Basically, to put it politely, way too many people suck compared to the number of good people.

There are so many things wrong with the world and we all are victims to varying degrees. You are suppose to overcome it and push against it, but not everyone can despite best efforts. And what about those at a huge disadvantage? I was abused with lasting damages, have a disability, mentally ill, poor, and not socially savvy.

Maybe I can just cope if I finally find that treatment plan that allows me to manage my depression and anxiety long-term. But then I began thinking that the reason why they are researching new drugs and treatment options is (as obvious as this statement is) because they don't have a cure and there is a lot they don't know about mental illnesses. So, you are left with lots of people who are unresponsive to treatments. That's nobodies fault, but those people have to suffer and what, wait around for treatment that may not become available within their lifetime? What happens when you feel no real joy and happiness ever and you just live in pain? What then? because that's my situation.

And to throw insult to injury, I watched a Ted talk recently where this psychiatrist has spent his whole medical career collecting brain scans of people with various neurological and psychiatric illnesses in order to model treatment plans. He has correlated different forms of depression and other illnesses with brain maps and uses the findings to prescribe medicine and therapy. In his talk, he mentioned that even seemingly innocuous head injuries can leave damage that devastates the individuals life. This brain-scan to treatment model is ground breaking healthcare, its not universally practiced yet. Thus many people are left with guess-work treatments, possible undiagnosed brain injuries, and ultimately years of struggle and hardship.

I brought this up to my husband, and also mentioned that I had a head injury as a child. This was when I was 9 or 10 (and I think 10), that means about a year later, maybe two, I developed mental illness that has changed the course of my life. I'm not saying that this is conclusive, by no means am I saying that! But it doesn't eliminate it either, so I have no idea if its relevant or not. So, now I wonder if this one thing has been significant player in my problems, and it turns out there's evidence that these things do happen. I thought about going to the clinic to see if they can match my depression with the best treatment options, and to ask if the injury is even relevant. There is a clinic in my state, but I can't afford it. And sense this is a relatively new approach in medicine, I don't know if any insurance will cover a visit and a brain scan.

I'm sorry for the novel, I condensed it the best I could but I realize that its a lot of different thoughts that I just can't resolve, and I've even left out the stories behind all of them and didn't mention some other issues that are floating around in my head. Bottom-line: I just can't shake this off. I see all these wrong things that happen and feel utterly helpless to solve my situation even when I try so hard because, well, that's the only way to move on in life. I feel I have no influence over any part of my life. Shoot me your thoughts, experiences, or anything, it all helps, but please don't mention "victim mentality." The difference here is that I realize everyone is a victim in some way and that's just life. Thanks for reading.

P.S. Feel free to skip this part. I want your opinion on the head injury bit, so I will tell you the story now. Skip if its not relevant to your thoughts. Anyways, my family was traveling with an RV. It was a hitch type, not the bus type. A few of my sibling and I were in the RV as we were traveling on the highway which is illegal because its hooked by a hitch and there are no seat-belts. I was watching the TV which was set above the counter. Well, I climbed on the counter to change the settings when, as I was later told, my dad made a sharp swerve off the highway because someone nearly collided with the truck. I was sent flying into the wall and cut my head on a metal panel below. After we arrived at our destination, I was taken to the hospital and was stitched up because I had a 2+ inch gash in my head. So, the key points are: we were at high speeds, sudden break/swerve, and I collided with the wall head first, enough to cause a huge tear by a non-protruding edge of a panel. I don't remember what happened between when I stopped crying and rest of the drive to our destination, but this was also when I was 9 or 10 and memory is faulty the longer its been from the event. Everyone also acted like I was unusually happy, but then again, I was a child who was acting like nothing happened yet I had a huge cut on my scalp. I do have a scar from it, I thinks its closer to 3 inches long but scars stretch when you grow.