Enviornmental affects

I was always telling myself I am not depressed. Making excuses on to why I act the way that I do, but slowly I can come to the conclusion that maybe my mother was right. Maybe I really am depressed.

I have tendency to sleep instead of do work. When I do clean I clean so well that I will not have to worry about it for weeks at a time. My smile has become something that I despise the most.

I realized something important though. I have friends - not just any normal group of friends - but people who actually care about my health. Who want me to succeed even when I don't want to succeed myself.

As I lay in bed contemplating what I feel it occurs to me that I do not know how to feel. I lost all feeling of love and happiness when I felt as though nobody wanted to care about me. Why do I feel this way? Mainly because I was always told that friends are never going to remain a constant in my life. That majority of the friends I were to make in high school will live their live and leave me just a distant memory. A figment of the imagination until a reunion come up or something that would bring all of us together. Another thing I was told was that life itself will end family will die and then who will you depend on? Nobody. That in life a person must be self sufficient. Being only ten at the time I would cry myself to sleep because of the deep conversations I would stumble into. It bothers me till this day because it affects the way I think of people. The way I approach problems and the way I handle my business.

I am eighteen and took things so hard that it is extremely hard for me to make friends. To put myself out into the open to be criticized, condemn, or any other thing that everyone else feels. I cannot talk to guys as though it is the okay thing to do. I cannot just say hey, you with the face I like you. Do you want to hang out sometime? I didn't join anything in high school mainly because I didn't think it mattered. Now as I attend community college I have nothing to show for. I just did the minimum to say that I was average enough to actually get accepted into a junior college.

I sit in silence because I do not know what to do for the rest of my life. I do not know if I should just take off be homeless and try to find myself in the world or continue of the paved path to a life that would work me until the end? It is a constant battle to what people believe I should do and what I should actually do. It is something that I no longer want to think about - it is something that haunts me everyday and keeps me up every night. The mysteries of life always trying to make me think of what life lies ahead and what I should and shouldn't do with the time I have now.

It is just a though but a powerful one that consumes the mind with never ending question and never ending possibilities that constantly control the way people behave.

1 of my fears (constant fears) was always being nothing, getting to the end of the line with nothing to show for it.

now, at 25, i see that coming true... day by day, month by month, year by year... i've lot so much- dfirection, motivation a good support network, stability, everything... now i just don't care.

i sit here day after day waiting to die- their's nothing more this life can offer me, so what's the point of it all.

i've always said that only you can live your life, only you can choose what you want to do- no one else has that power- and since i feel not even i have it (i don't know what i want), yeah... i really don't care

First of all, welcome to teh site.

I think many of us have went through a period of disbelief. When I was young, I didn't want to think that I was ever depressed. I wanted to believe the problem was the rest of the world. Everyone kept telling me I wasn't behaving appropriately. That my sleeping all day or not at all wasn't normal. That my ups weren't normal. That my downs weren't normal. I still wouldn't call them abnormal, even though I've finally realized the world was never the problem, per se. I'm not abnormal, none of us are (normal is a stupid word, anyway). But I have been depressed. I have lain in bed at night, wondering, what now?

I encourage you to seek help if you're ready for it. I often feel I waited too long. I saw a psychiatrist in middle school, but stopped going. I didn't go long enough to reap the benefits. For a decade, I was scared to go back. Scared of the bill, scared of talking, scared of finding out what was going on with me, scared of getting better. After ten years, the feelings of extreme ups and extreme downs became normal. I pushed most of my friends away and soon, these ups and downs were my friends. But there is a better.

I'm trying so hard to reach out for it. And I've finally seen.. people do care about me. I still feel depressed. I still need to reach for hope. But I have a mother who loves me unconditionally and has supported me before I've went to every appointment. I have a sister who does her best to make sure I have the money I need to support myself. I have a dog who will always greet me. And I have a friend (though online, she's still there) who has been there even during my disappearances, even during my mood swings, even when I'm snapping at everyone. It can be hard to see these people (and animals) when depressed, but it's important to remember they're there.

I'm rambling now. I just want you to know that you're not alone. No one is ever entirely alone. There are so many people out there... out here... if you can reach out to just one of them, you're doing something.

In answer to your question, I spend most of my time thinking about life. It is a big stressor for me. I obsess over both life and death. I hear so many people with depression don't care, but I'm the extreme opposite (and there are many with depression who will say this, too). I do care, so much that I feel like I'll never achieve those things I care about. I learned something in Psych 150 that kind of bothered me. Internal people vs external. We were essentially told people with depression are external (believe that fate controls their destiny, etc). But I simply am not. I am internal. I believe that only I control my destiny. Which is what depresses me. Because I feel like I'm failing at doing so. (Locus of Control if you want to look it up) I felt like the generalization is stupid. Sometimes, not everyone in a category can be generalized.

I'm so tired thinking about life, I just don't care anymore.

bronzeowl: sounds to me like an internal locus of responsibility with an external locus of control, perhaps? I wonder at times if I have that.

Hmm, seems entirely probable to a point.