To all those dealing with depression/bipolar/or just feel alone

[Aussiemum777]

I can relate to the emotionless part of your story Rachel, I am the same, take me to a sad movie and I wont shed a tear, basically the only time I cry is when I am greiving over a loss.
Rachel, your parents shouldnt tease you about your not wanting to drive, anxiety can be very difficult to deal with, if you are not ready then dont feel bad about taking your time, some teens drive much later in life and your parents should support you no matter what you do, driving is scary to begin with and teasing you is only going to make the matter worse, starting out in a parking lot or here in Australia my kids learned to drive in an industrial estate where there were no other drivers except for the occasional other learner driver it was a good way of gaining their confidence, driving lessons are also great with a qualified instructor, a little bit pricey but well worth it, when I take my daughters out for driving lessons it is pretty scary because they arent very good drivers yet and to be honest I am not that good of an instructor so driving lessons are a better option for me us all round.
Rachel take your time and drive when you are ready, if you drive while you are anxious then you are going to be more prone to making mistakes out on the road which is only going to make you feel worse in the long run, Good luck!

[LancasterPrincess]

Rachel, I didn't get my license until I was 18 years old. I had way too much anxiety and it was much safer for me AND EVERYONE ELSE for me to stay off the road until I was ready. Nothing can be gained from being overly anxious behind the wheel, and it's beyond silly of your parents to not see that. Part of what they teach you in Drivers Ed is that if you're upset to pull over, and anxiety is no different.

I wasn't teased about it, but it irked my parents, and my twin sister because they had to drive me everywhere, but I'll never regret my decision to wait. I scored a 100% when I finally went and got the test. Not many people can say that, and I like to think it has a lot to do with me waiting until I was ready.

[TheHayleyDoll]

Lots of teens don't get their license right away. I didn't! Only a handful of people in my entire high school drove while I was in school. I don't even drive now, I just take the bus everywhere and use my license for ID. It's a little different living in a city though, and I don't know if you live in one.

I'm currently going through a decline, feeling like my life has no purpose, and I'm just "going through the motions" of day-to-day life purely for survival. I feel like I'm... stuck. Because of this, I also feel emotionless. What's the point of feeling anything? It usually these feelings that fuel my depressive episodes. Unlike Aussie, I feel like I have absolutely no reason to get out of bed in the morning, I just get up anyway so my hubby and my parents don't think anything is wrong. >_>

[belladoggy]

Rachel, I'm almost 20 and I STILL haven't gotten mine because of bad experiences my first time out. I need to get it, but I'm SUCH an anxious driver (and person overall, really...between the anxiety disorders and the ASD, it's a wonder i can function at all). Don't feel bad; I know it can be difficult for people to understand how scary driving is for some of us. But just keep practicing in parking lots; that is what i'm doing until I'm confident enough to be out on the streets.

[eros]

Thank you so much girls for the advice and comfort! It makes me feel better about taking my time driving.
Has anyone here ever taken a "happy pill"? I know my aunt has for her migraines to ease her pain. I wonder if they could help me be a little more excited about things.

[eros]

So right now I'm staying home from church (again) because I'm feeling like a piece of crap. No matter what medicine I'm taking my allergies just won't go away. I spent 4 hours, inbetween sleep last night, blowing my nose. Probably went through about half the kleenex box.
Anyways I just broke down about a few minutes ago. I'm still teary eyed now. And I really don't know why. (Maybe PMS) It may be because school has started and I'm so stressed between school, church, and other activities. And my guy friend, we haven't been communicating much. I feel like we're slowly slipping apart.
I joined cheer leading because my parents were tired of me not being involved in school. After last practice, since I'm the only one who is entirely new to it, I feel stupid looking clueless when everyone knows a cheer and I don't.
After my breakdown, I went online and checked depression symptoms. It looks like I may have either SAD or Dysthymia. SAD because I never really go outside. Perhaps I should start spending about 30 minutes or so just getting some Vitamin D and good ole sunlight.

[MiniCupcakes]

I have a friend in Maryland who goes through depression. She gets made fun of everyday for who she is, even by her own parents. I think I've convinced her not to commit suicide though. She still worries me, I don't know what I would do without her..
I might show this thread to her. Maybe she'll find something.
Ich liebe dich, Alison! ;u;

[Miranda_]

I can't drive a car at all and I don't have a licience, save one for riding a motorbike. I gave that up when I moved into town, and I can honestly say I'm less stressed for it.

About a month ago, I was hit with depression for no good reason, cept that the winter was still going on and on; it lifted eventually, but it feels so awful when it's there.

[Aussiemum777]

Miranda, I feel the same, winter has just started here in Australia and I can already feel the winter blues coming on, it happens every year, I can image its probably a little worse for you cause it gets a lot colder in the UK, I am glad it doesnt snow here, as beautiful as it is to look at I would hate it.
Enjoy your summer everyone

[Silent_Wolf]

Just a small ramble from me.

I've been experiencing some form of anxiety or another for the past year, probably just On My Own Jitters for the most part; I've been renting an apartment in my college city. I had to leave college as my loans weren't covering me anymore, and I'm now 13k in the gutter (my dad even more so as a result of the Parent Plus loan). I struggle to pay it and I'm also struggling to have the payments lowered due to the strange wording in the applications.

My boyfriend and I nearly broke up in January this year; most of it stemmed from my anxiety or depression or whatever it is you want to call it. I didn't want to go outside, I didn't want to do... anything at all, I wasn't the person I usually was. He also dropped a bit of a bomb on me that I'm not comfortable sharing, but... none of this will really make sense if I don't, but I can't share that kind of info on this site.

Anyway, to put it simply, he was... technically cheating, but not, and it was weird and complicated. The thing was, though, that he hadn't done it since my birthday in June the previous year (which is when we were designated serious and steady); but it was tearing him up that he'd done it at all and he'd tried to forget he'd done it. However, he couldn't hold it anymore and had decided to break up to spare me any hurt.

We're still together.

Before I get lectured at for staying with an, ahem, cheater, when I myself have lectured others in the past for such things, I only want to say that the circumstances are personal and to please refrain from judging what we've chosen to do.

We fought like hell. Not even a fight; more a frustrated crying match. Neither of us has ever been capable of being angry with the other, frustrated at maximum, but never angry. The problem at the core was, we couldn't communicate. So we talked.

We talked for hours.

We talked about the problems.

We talked about nothing at all.

We talked in circles and in spirals and everything came back to him wanting to break up until I was able to get him thinking about something very important: He could have just broken up with me, without mentioning the "cheating" or my emotional distance. He wanted me to know what was wrong, and he wanted us down the line to get back together once we'd figured out what was wrong.

I told him that there wasn't going to be improvement on either end if it was over, because we'd have to both move out of the apartment, I'd be stuck back with my crazy f**king parents (who are now divorced, thank GOD), he'd have to couch bounce with his friends, and we'd be miserable and too far apart to even try to make things work.

And I told him that, no, I wasn't going to forgive him for "cheating." But I could accept his apology, and that I still loved him dearly. The entire time we talked, he never spoke of his own wants - other than he wanted to see me happy and mentally stable again, that I needed someone better than him. He spoke of my nightmares, my worries, my miseries; but he never spoke of them as faults, just as things I needed to overcome, as goals.

I love this man more than words or text or... god, I love him more than anything else I've ever loved.

We decided to agree to disagree on... certain points, at least until morning. I told him that if he felt the need to punish himself, he could. He asked if he could force himself to sleep on the sh*tty sofa, and I said yes - but that if he wanted to come in and sleep next to me, I'd appreciate it.

We watched something ridiculous, I think a Let's Play by Two Best Friends, before I headed to bed. I laid there crying for the better part of an hour I think, wondering what to do, when I heard footsteps and the door creak. Heh, I still remember what he said; he said, "Face, if it's okay, can I sleep in here with you? It's really cold and I don't want you to freeze since the heating's off for the night."

The next day, we talked a little more, sorted things out. It was... awkward, at first, because neither of us wanted to bring up what we'd discussed, but it came out eventually.

The entire week following is a blur. I quit the job I was at, as it was the main source of my problems (lack of sleep, sh*tty moods, nerves, just everything), and began working at a grocery store in the neighborhood.

I'm still nervy. My mother refuses to acknowledge I have any problems and won't give me the number to the psychiatrist she saw before the divorce so I can set my own appointment and I can't spell his name to save my life so I can't find him. I don't really trust the doctors in the city I live in, mostly as a result of the stories of friends who've gone to the therapists and psychiatrists and psychologists, all. I've gotten better as a result of a much healthier work environment, my sleeping schedule has stabilized, and I can actually do the things I've been needing to do.

Now, really, the only problem is money and my panic attacks that stir up once in awhile.

As a final note, I guess, I want to state I've never felt suicidal. Not in the normal way, at least, is what I want to say. Ally of the awesome blog Hyperbole and a Half states my experience over the past year quite eloquently:

And that's the most frustrating thing about depression. It isn't always something you can fight back against with hope. It isn't even something — it's nothing. And you can't combat nothing. You can't fill it up. You can't cover it. It's just there, pulling the meaning out of everything. That being the case, all the hopeful, proactive solutions start to sound completely insane in contrast to the scope of the problem.

It would be like having a bunch of dead fish, but no one around you will acknowledge that the fish are dead. Instead, they offer to help you look for the fish or try to help you figure out why they disappeared.

I started spending more time alone.

Perhaps it was because I lacked the emotional depth necessary to panic, or maybe my predicament didn't feel dramatic enough to make me suspicious, but I somehow managed to convince myself that everything was still under my control right up until I noticed myself wishing that nothing loved me so I wouldn't feel obligated to keep existing.

It's a strange moment when you realize that you don't want to be alive anymore. If I had feelings, I'm sure I would have felt surprised. I have spent the vast majority of my life actively attempting to survive. Ever since my most distant single-celled ancestor squiggled into existence, there has been an unbroken chain of things that wanted to stick around.

Yet there I was, casually wishing that I could stop existing in the same way you'd want to leave an empty room or mute an unbearably repetitive noise.

She also says that the other problem with feeling like this, is that everyone thinks you want to off yourself. It isn't that I wanted to die; I simply... felt like people would be better off if I was gone. I've had that general thought nibbling on my mind since I was a kid, only whenever I was really upset or something terrible had happened. I thought feeling like this was perfectly normal. I know it's not, now, after years of accepting it and not telling anyone for fear of being told I was in an angst phase, or that I'd be thrown to a doctor who would turn me into a zombie with medication.

Ally also mentions a moment where she can't stop laughing. Having a moment like that over something insignificant and ridiculous is ridiculously empowering after feeling so little for so long. You laugh at something small; then you're laughing at the fact you're laughing at really nothing; then you are simply laughing because of the fact you can laugh at all. You can't explain why you're laughing, you just are. Her moment was laughing at a piece of shriveled corn under her fridge. Mine was struggling to kick my socks off while I lay in bed, because I was hot, and there was a snag on my toenail keeping my sock on, and my ankle wasn't cooperating and was holding the sock on the other ankle after I got the first one off, and I was buried under so many comforters that I was floundering around. It was so ridiculous and random and I couldn't... stop... giggling. I felt so wonderful after just laughing for nearly half an hour over nothing, and my boyfriend laughed right along with me.

I'm still not one hundred percent okay, but things are definitely better than they were that day in January. We're working on getting on foodstamps so money isn't quite so tight, and so we can start saving for a smaller apartment that isn't so expensive. But for now, things... things feel pretty nice. I'm finally doing all the laundry I've been needing to do for months, thanks to my dad letting me come home for a day and a night to do it all. I'm working on a writing project that feels wonderful. I'm making new friends at work, my best friends are coming to Pittsburgh in July for Anthrocon and to just visit, and my best friend from Cali has come a hell of a way since his suicidal stint in July of last year. Things are looking up right now. I hope they continue to.

I also turn 21 this Friday!

Hyperbole and a Half, warning, some foul language.