Depression Understood Forums

Hi! ->I posted this before and got a wonderful reply but when I tried to reply it didn't work and then when I came back to it something wasn't working so I'm reposting it! I know this is weird but whoever replied before, if you could say what you said again I would greatly appreciate it, I loved what you said!<- But anyways, I'm new to this website and I'm posting because I'm not sure if I am depressed or not and was wondering if someone could give me any advice or insight. Basically I'm 14 and I've been feeling very upset for maybe the last two years. I've been crying a lot, distancing myself and feeling very hopeless and it only seems to be getting worse. Theres a lot of things that might be causing it I guess. For example my parents have recently started fighting a lot, my mum is not very supportive of me and always criticizing, I started senior school where I didn't know anybody and have had a bit of trouble with making friends (and even if I did it would be awkward because I hardly even invite friends over because my house is very messy), I feel like such a failure in my life and that I'm wasting it away and I'm not really sure who I can talk to because I'm really shy and it's really hard for me to open up to people. I guess thats also another reason too, I'm very shy and sometimes I feel like people get sorta bored of me.... But anyways, I just recently tried emailing some counselor people and even tried calling a hotline but it seems like they didn't even care after I said that I wasn't extremely suicidal. So I was looking at some of the posts and the responses and actually got a lot out of them so I was wondering if anybody could give me some advice on my situation.

I know that so many other people have it a lot worse than I do and that my problems might seem really petty but if you know anything that would help or if you think that I might be depressed please let me know,

Thank you so much!!!
xx

Welcome Camami!!! First of all I would like to say that making friends and finding yourself can be frustrating and time consuming especially at school being that there are so many types of kids and clicks. My advice to u is just to be yourself, don't try to be someone your not and it will come naturally. You have your whole life ahead of you to choose where you want to go and who you want to be so don't think your of yourself as a failure. Do you believe in God? God has helped me overcome depression and addiction. I can tell you lots of churchs have small groups with kids your age that talk about issues such as yours and is a great way to meet people. Wish you the best!!!

Camami,

When you posted here the first time and got that great reply I think you found out that the world is a lot bigger than you thought!. My heart breaks for you when you write how lonely you are. I had similar experiences at your age. There were only two people who would talk to me at school ... And the only thing we had in common was that no one liked us. At 14 you're ready ... but there is not much you are allowed to do yet. If you read about people in the 18th and 19th centuries ... they were often grown, married, and working at 14! One of the words I thought about a lot at 14 was cultural neoteny. There are a lot of forces that seem to be trying to control you. It's trite, but true, that these forces back off as you age. One thing you can do is to think about things that mean a lot to you, and then look for ways to interact with people that have similar interests. That's where the internet is great. From my experience, your job now is to simply explore, not do. By the time you are 24 ... in 10 more years ... you may be surprised at what you know because you started exploring now.