I had severe manic-depressive episodes ("bipolar 1", in today's jargon) all throughout my teenage years and into my early 20's.
When you talk about clinical depression, it's a mistake to ask questions like "What dragged you down?" -- as if this kind of depression were CAUSED by external factors. That... isn't how it works.
Major depression / bipolar / cyclothymia / manic-depression is a chemical imbalance involving neurotransmitters in the brain -- like Parkinson's disease. Stressors and life events can WORSEN it, or EXACERBATE its effects -- but they can't CAUSE it. If you don't have clinical depression, then you don't have it. If you have those imbalances in yr brain, then... you have them.
I had to bury a couple of my best friends as a teenager (victims of gang-related violence). That made my depressive episodes WORSE, but, it would be a major mistake to say that CAUSED them.
The imbalances in yr brain never really go away, I hate to say.
Instead, you need to learn to master them -- lest they master you.
Here's a couple examples of what I mean:
* When I was about 16, I discovered that sleep deprivation served as an effective buffer against the worst depressive episodes. (If I stayed awake all night, I entered a kind of euphoric numbness where it all went away.)
From there, I started experimenting with non-traditional sleep schedules, until I figured out the kind of schedule I'm on now -- which has not only maximized my productivity, but has also kept the worst of the bipolar episodes at bay.
(I turned out to be right, by the way -- in the mid-late 1990's, the US NIH started studying sleep deprivation in earnest as a therapy for clinical depression. I was one of the subjects in the earliest studies.)
* When I'm depressed, I can concentrate and learn to a degree I just can't at other times. I've put this to work to accumulate a pretty vast amount of knowledge in my fields of expertise (and random nerdy interests), as well as to Get Shit Done.
* Being bipolar has allowed me to develop self-awareness faster than most people.
Most people have NO IDEA how they're going to react in stressful, unexpected, or crisis situations. I, on the other hand, know EXACTLY how I am going to feel, think, and (re) act -- and this makes me a go-to girl when everything else is falling apart.
When I was a teenager, they didn't even have SSRI's yet (THANK GOD). They just had tricyclic antidepressants, which did absolutely nothing for me. That was the extent of the
I have been depressed most of my life with extreme low self esteem because of my mom. She keeps telling me that my feelings and opinions don't matter, that I'm worthless and suck at everything, that I should do this or that, she keeps trying to make me think I should be a robot and let her control me, she tells me I'm ugly and that I am worthless and she should have killed me in Laos and that no one would ever love me not even a dog and they would love dog poop more than me. She completely shattered my self esteem. No matter how i live or what I say I'm always the evil one, the one to blame for all her problems. I feel sad all day every day of my life and like I shouldn't be living. I think everyone hates me and that I can never be loved. I fear that I cannot trust anyone and that no one can trust me. I feel oppressed all the days of my life. I just feel like... I should die all the time to make everyone else happy. I just feel depressed all the days of my life. I feel like I shouldn't be around people because I have nothing but evil to offer. I try so hard to be a good daughter, to be a good christian, to be a good wife, to be a good mother but it is never enough. I just don't care about anyone or anything anymore. That you guys, is MY depression. thanks for reading. Have a wonderful day.
I started to get bullied like everyday at school starting from when I was 11 or 12 and it ended when I was about 16. At first I just found it annoying but it got me depressed real fast because no one at school was there to back me up, even the one who used to be friends because they're just afraid that they'd be bullied in return. I sought out all kinds of help, teachers, parents, friends from other schools.
But none of them helped too much, worst of all, all my parents said to me was "Deal with it yourself, you're a boy" which made me hate not only school but my home as well. Then my grades dropped dramatically and my parents took the only "outlets" available to me away which are my TV and computer. So my life in a nutshell at that point was go to school, get beat up, go home get scolded for low grades then cry to sleep.
That lasted for like 2 years until I "exploded" and went to my bullies and beat their asses, 2 of them went to hospital. The bullying stopped for a short while but then as soon as they came back they started again. But by then I started to defend myself every time. And I was just so depressed for all those years, my teenage years are just get beat up or fight everyday until I moved to another country when I was almost 16 and then everything went fine. But I guess I got PTSD from that, I never saw a therapist but from what I read from medical websites I have all its symptoms.
Yes I have. I've been depressed all throughout school because the bullying dragged me down. I'm going to therapy soon.
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i was a depressed, stick in the mud from ages 11-17 it was just a teen phase for me although i get down a few times every now and then. it was just a coping method for stress, u kno how they say depression is comfortable. i never got professional help because it wasn't that bad and i was raised to think sadness is melodramatic and to suck it the fuck up lmao
my view of the world dragged me down, i had this weird belief that i'd die young. I don't know why i thought that but i believed it. i thought life had no meaning then my parents got sick of me and shipped me off to return to the ground with my grandparents out in the boonies. it was a restorative experience for me, i figured out what my purpose was. life had meaning and my comfortable little bubble of parental protection popped and i was faced with real world shit.
i never told my family or friends, i didn't think it was any of their business but they noticed. always remind me of it in jokes lmao my personality did a 180 during that time. i was a happy kid, sad teen, happy adult :D
Yep I got to that point before. I broke down crying and admitted to my mom that I needed help.
What dragged me down:
- Failed college
- Got into a car wreck and couldn't afford to fix it
- Found out all my supposed friends only cared about me because I gave them rides. So once my car was gone, they all basically left me and talked shit about me behind my back. One supposed friend became pissed at me and said I ruined things for her since I couldn't take her some where. None of them cared that my car could have crushed me to death. None of them even bothered to come to where I was to help me right after the wreck. So I highly doubt any of them would have cared if I had actually died in the wreck.
- After moving out of the supposed friends house and back home. They ended up taking a lot of my stuff and throwing it away. Including my breathing machine and glasses. So for a while I was basically blind until I could get new ones.
- Wasn't taking my adhd medication correctly.
I have always been 'dark' and depressed. I've never really know an anything different but I do have periods where it's less bad and some where it is really intense. I've been on meds since I was 22, in 26 now.
Yes, but i never recieved it. Mom wants me to go to therapy for it now though. My father was the main cause along with bullies.
Uhm, yes.
I was severely depressed when I was about 14. It was caused by best friend passing away when I was 12.
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i was depressive from the age 14 till 22... i have healed from it recently.
and depression is never healed by others... it can only be healed by yourself
Yes, i have, and is. Life was dragging me down in general. School, my relashionships were going down the drain, generally feeling like a failure and so forth
Yes, I've been there a couple times. I haven't really been to a counselor or anything like that, but my friends have heard me bitch more often than I'd like to admit.
Yes it's been almost 2 years. I have no support syetem so it's only getting worse. I've wanted professional help for a while now.
Yeah, some shit in life is just irreconcilable. I dealt with it on my own without being a self indulgent asshole and using it as an excuse to sack off other stuff.
yes and there was nothing... I was just depressed. there doesn't need to be a reason
I've been depressive and suicidal from 14-16 pretty much straight through those two years because it was when my anorexia was at its worst and just in general a lot of shit happened in my life.
So far this has been my 3rd year of having a severe case of depression. Yay!! :(
yes. and let me tell u lol - nobody helped me but myself.
yes after some one i loved very much had to move away and i am still depressed she moved away in the begging of march, i even forced my self not to eat
Yes, some years I even attempted suicide, it was school related and not seeing a purpose in life. But it got better with family support. And now I think I was really stupid for doing that.
Yes. I was just lonely and had no close friends or family or someone I could trust. It affected my studies and shit.
I have cyclical periods of chronic depression that has lasted my whole life. I'm currently in one that was triggered when my mother passed away.
I have been there and still go there lots of things drag me down
Some 4 years, I had only my wife's support and working 12 hrs /day, 5 days/week. :-P
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