Depression Understood Forums

Hello Everyone,

My name is Jack. For the past couple of years I've been getting more and more depressed. Right now, I'm at a point where I have no idea what I should do with my life. I was hoping some of you could share somem insight with me. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one out there with depression. I guess I should tell you all my story, so here we go.

I'm 21 years old. I've lived with my parents all of my life. I was born in Brooklyn, New York and moved to Long Island. I had friends when I went to school in Brooklyn, but once I moved to Long Island that changed. I wasn't very wealthy and my peers would always pick on me about my cheap clothes and not having the latest toys and games that were out. It made me sad, but I was younger back then. It didn't bother me too much. This went on to middle school. Everyone thought I was a loser. People judged me before they even knew me. Things started to pick up for me in highschool though. The other students became a lot more mature and I started to fit in. I had a nice circle of friends I would hang out with every day and things were great. My last year in highschool was probably one of the best years of my life. I got an internship with an Engineering firm, I was going to graduate, I was an accomplished musician, I had finally gotten with the girls of my dreams. Life was good. Then college came, haha. I wanted to major in engineering in college, but I scored low on my placement exam and couldn't start the engineering curriculum. The college told me that I needed to take 3 remedial courses before I could join the other Engineering majors. This is when my life started to go down hill. I was a commuting student. I travelled 2 1/2 hours to go to school and 2 1/2 hours coming home. I'm a very immature person and I didn't take my classes seriously. I felt like the classes I was taking weren't going to help me with my Engineering goal, so I stopped going to class. I didn't withdraw or anything. I just stopped. This pattern continued for 3 semesters until I was kicked out.
I then applied to a local community college. I loved the feeling of the community college. The campus was beautiful, the people were nice, and it was a little closer to home. I was ready for a new beginning. My brother introduced me to Marijuana shortly after my semester at the community college began. Marijuana helped me stop thinking about how I had failed myself. It helped me enjoy life. It helped me forget that my friends were all making things of themselves while I was still lagging behind. Eventually my parents found out about my Marijuana problems and they're now trying to help me. Religion, being nice to me, bringing me to a psychologist. All of these things. This leads to the present day. I recently quit smoking marijuana and I'm trying to make my life better, but I feel it's so hard. I'm not used to studying or working hard. I feel lost. I had a job, but I was laid off. I have no money, and I'm suppose to be in class right now, instead I'm typing this letter up. I know I shouldn't cut class, but right now, I need someone to talk to. I need to tell the truth to someone. I hope one of you can give me some advice. Typing out this LONG essay about how much of a loser I am is helping me feel a little better though. I'm not ugly and I'm not dumb, I'm just lazy and this laziness of mine is just messing with my life. Thanks for reading this and if you have any advice at all, please reply. Thank you!

Jack

Hi Jack,

I'm Miranda and I'm also 21.

it's really easy to put yourself down when all you can think of are the negative things. It's hard to congratulate yourself on overcoming the negatives, or doing something simple that you find hard where others do not.

You are not a loser - very few people are! I reserve this insult for the cheating ex boyfriends of friends and that guy who used to tease people who answered questions in first semester psych.

What I am kind of finding is that Bullying seems to be different between our two countries. In my city (Auckland, New Zealand), it tends to be less of a problem and schools often have pedantic remedial solutions that border on leaving the kids preferring to be hassled then have daily counselling and 'restorative justice' meetings with their bully. It is very upfront, and sees the bully as someone who bullies themselves from the inside.

But from my experience, we should never let anyone else bring us down under their desire to see someone fall. Constructive criticism is a different story.

Do you feel pressure to attend college through your family? I'm changing degrees again, and am only comfortable about it because I'M ONLY 21 and I love to learn so will probably be at uni til i'm 40. Why are you in a rush to complete these steps that everyone else already has - they can do it, so can you, but why not show them you can do something else that they can't or won't?

You need to give yourself a break. You have expectations on yourself that aren't realistic. You need some self realisation time. Time to just lie in bed for a week, time to think about everything bad thats ever happened, how you reacted, and why. Once you can understand who and why you act and think, it gets easier to be able to understand your limits.

I've been in my flat for 2 weeks, leaving only at night and for work or composition assignments. I know I can't, and that it will pass. I've been push push pushing myself, and I need to heal. Going to class would have me bawling in the music department (and they already think I'm wierd), and attending events where I have a panic attack in front of a cute guy only compounds things - once you know you can't push yourself any further, STOP. You're not lazy.

(wow just wrote those paragraphs realising I am spouting stuff I need some kind of human services degree for.....)

I hope this helps at all, I just thought maybe because I'm your age and can identify with heaps of the stuff you mentioned, you might find some use!