[birdyblues]

Hey Y'all. I suppose I'm just looking for advice and wondering if anyone can relate. Growing up, I always knew exactly what I wanted to do. Not only that, I'd found my passion and I was good at it. So, I spent years all the way through high school training to do what I love better than anyone else. However, during my senior year, I became so depressed that I quit and began to focus only on academics instead of my passion in life. I want to be positive because my family has given me a chance to start again at college and to begin my life after high school. I'm incredibly grateful and I do feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

I am grateful and I try so hard to show it by making good grades and telling everyone how grateful and appreciative I am straight out all the time. But being grateful doesn't stop me from feeling depressed. The last thing I want is for my parents or anyone supporting me to feel that I'm ungrateful or don't appreciate my opportunities/privileges in life. What often bothers me is that no matter how hard I try to seem happy and perfect, I've truly been depressed for a very long time now and it's hard to never act or say how I honestly feel. I hate living a lie, but I do because I love my family more than I could ever want to feel happy myself.

However, when I was in my first year of high school at my personal lowest, though I was horrified at the idea of anyone knowing I wasn't perfect or that I was unhappy, my depression was so terrible that I decided I didn't care anymore. I tried to explain how I was feeling to my father in order to get some help or some comfort. I wanted him to know what to do. But instead, he started to raise his voice and yell at me that I was ungrateful. He started listing out all the things he's done for me as if I had no idea.

I feel that this experience has ruined any chance I had of getting help or being honest about my feeling depressed. At this point, I am starting to really believe that there is no way I can at the same time, be both grateful and appreciative of what I have in life, and also feel just horridly depressed. I don't have any role models or hope that I can dig myself out of this secretive and complicated hole I'm in. But my life feels like a lie. It's already hard enough to gather the courage to be honest...I just want someone to listen to me and not make it about them. Is that too much to ask?

[cravinmaven]

Are you currently seeking your passion at college, or more academics?
If you are grateful, your outward actions will naturally show your gratitude. It sounds like you are putting undo pressure on yourself in many ways.
You say that you don't show your feelings because you love your family more than your own happiness. True love is being real. You are really grateful but you are also really unsettled and there has got to be a reason why you are so sad.
It's unfortunate the way your father reacted to your honesty, but "living a lie," is just going to make you feel worse. BTW, nobody is perfect. If you feel pressure to act a way different than how you feel, consider the source of that pressure. Is it you? Or is it your family? Or something else entirely? Again, I am sorry that your father acted that way but there is hope for you. You do not have to go on living with depression...

[birdyblues]

I'm currently trying to seek my passion at college. Although, it feels more like eating a food, not liking the taste of it, but then getting acclimated and starting to like it over time. If that makes sense...Basically, I didn't originally want to go to college to study what I'm studying, but I failed in what I was actually passionate about before, so it's supposed to be a new start. I do notice that sometimes my father will ask me why, if I'm so grateful, why I'm so upset. I've really tried, but I just have no idea why. He thinks I don't want to tell him and that I'm trying to be difficult for some reason. But in reality, I hate leaving him and myself guessing about why I'm struggling with this. If I could just stop feeling that way or make myself know the answer and tell him, I would. Everyone in my family are doctors who are extremely successful. They're all about being healthy and living your best life and all that. So I do feel pressure to be like that all the time too. It feels like this horrible secret that I just know I'm not like them, and not only that, I struggle with things like depression...I hope I can be real and honest with them one day

[Knickerbocker]

Okay, I promise I'm not stalking you, I just keep coming across your posts and they resonate with my life experience.

It sounds like you're putting WAY too much pressure on yourself, probably because you come from a family of high achievers. In case no one has ever told you, failure can be a wonderful thing. Failure teaches us way more than success as long as we learn from it. If you learned anything about yourself/life/the world, you won. Just apply it and try something new next time. I would suggest that you try to go for your passion again. Maybe see if you can audit a class if you don't want to commit. You owe it to yourself to try again just so you don't end up always wondering what if. If it doesn't work out, at least you'll know for sure and can move on.

You may never be able to fully open up to your family, and that's okay, but you need to get your feelings out and be heard. This forum is a good start, but talking to a trained stranger might help greatly. If you're in college, then there should be some mental health services available. Counseling/peer to peer/support groups/hotlines. Sometime talking to a stranger lets you say things you'd never say to someone you know. In the meantime, you might try to journal. Write your feelings, get them out of your head and onto paper.

I have no doubt that your family loves you and wants the best for you, they might just not know how to show/say it. Deep down I'm sure they want you to actually be happy and not just going through the motions. Sometimes those we love are just too close to see us and sometimes their own hang ups prevent them from being who we need them to be.

Please hang in there and try not to be too hard on yourself.

[birdyblues]

Lol, I have been posting here a lot recently and I appreciate the advice in any case so it's okay. Personally, I can't even tell if I'm putting too much pressure on myself..I mean my family and the way they work is pretty much all I know. There are mental health services available that I'm sure I could try at my college. However, I've not had the best experiences with therapy and the times I've tried to take advantage of talking to a stranger, I just can't make myself get the words out. I could probably literally be dying one day somehow and if someone asked me if I was okay, I'd have to say, "oh I'm fine, everything's fine!". I hate it..but it's like I think about everything people have done for me and I just zip up and won't let myself say anything that might sound like a complaint of any kind.

But I'll try and take your advice and try and at least scope out potential resources if I can gather some courage..