I don't understand what's wrong with me....

[crzybeautifl88]

I am 19 and live with my grandparents. I have for about 10 years. For the past year I have been feeling like I don't have much time, or that i'm running out of it. I put a rush on myself about everything. I have been planning on leaving for about 2 years now. This past year I was going to move to california with a friend of mine, everything was planned out. At that time I started thinking of how scary it's going to be without my grnadparents there with me........[ I don't know my dad and barely know my mom, my grnadparents are all i've had]

 

Needless to say I didn't go. It's getting to the point now where it's a big decision to stay one night away from here. I just keep thinking maybe I should stay here until they die.......I know that it sounds weird but what if I leave and lose them. My grandpa hasn't been doing so well lately and it's so scary. Like I said I feel liek I don't have any time. I wrote him a letter about 10 minutes ago telling him that I appreciate everything that he has done for me and if I have ever said anything to make it seem liek I didn't care then I didn't mean it.

 

I think that I might be depressed. I read that book, Prozac Nation, it seems liek I relate to a bunch of what she says. For the past week I have had a headache and it won't go away I don't knwo if this relates at all I don't know if anything that I told you relates at all actually..............I'm making myself sound co dependant. I don't think I am...............

 

If you have any questions that might help you figure out anything please feel free to ask, I need all the help I can get.

I don't even feel liek it's all worth living anymore. I won't ever kill myself I have to much restraint, but I want to end it. It just seems liek an easier way to deal with things. I keep trying to tell myself that if I lose weight everything would be fine..... see? I don't make any sense.......... Please anything that you say won't be taken offensively. I see a lot of people post and get mad b/c they hear things they don't want to hear. I won't maybe if someone if firm it'll make me put myslef in therapy fast.

thanks for reading and not thinking i'm a freak. I really appreciate it.

[Tony T]

Your whining seems pathetic to me and certainly is unproductive to the cause of pulling yourself out of your perceived plight. You feel sorry for yourself. You think life has done you wrong. Well, maybe a lot of unfortunate things have happened to you in your life but it's real hard to feel sorry for your ass when I know there are thousands of people around the world who will die from starvation today. On average, there are two American soldiers killed or maimed each day in Iraq, thousands of babies will die today around the world at birth and thousands more will experience lifelong disabilities. It's real hard to feel sorry for you when there are people out there with debilitating phobias and panic attacks so bad they can't leave their house to make a living; there are almost 5 million people out of work in America and many have no idea where their next meal will come from; there are millions of people worldwide who suffer from HIV and AIDS, many of whom will not live to see this coming Christmas.

 

The universe is totally indifferent to your plight so you better pick yourself up by the bootstraps and start taking responsiblity for the direction your life goes in. You have been given a gift and you better start doing something with it. Yes, it would have been nice if your parents could have been around...but they weren't. You are old enough now that you can get the support you need from friends, if you can pick yourself up long enough to make some.

 

We all have problems and we all can feel sorry for ourselves if we want. I really don't know what you were looking for in your post but it was sickening. As I am writing this post, people are dying in hospitals, siamese twins are living their lives attached unavoidably and permanently to another person, blind people are running into walls, etc.

 

Adversity can be your greatest friend or your worst enemy. YOU have the choice of which it will be.

[Gray]

Theres that anger again Tony. I can find some anger management groups for you if you're interested. I'm just not sure what area you live in.

[moimeme]

Crzy, if you think you are depressed, see a doctor. Ignore the advice of the 'moderator'. If you think you have symptoms of depression, you will need treatment. You will NOT need to hear stupidity from people who utterly fail to understand that depression is a medical ailment and that telling someone off will NOT help.

[Tony T]

I stand solidly by my post above. I am not an angry person at all. As a matter of fact, I am quite stable. However, I've been around life many years and I've been as low as you can get, having my mother pass away when I was 13 and living with a physically and mentall abusive father thereafter.

 

There are many, many things I could be sorry for myself for, past and present. Those are ongoing and private and I will not disclose many of them here. However, the universe could care less about my debilitations. Life goes on and if I don't keep up with it I get lost in the shuffle and sucked into the belly of pity and destruction.

 

Very often how I answer a post depends on my intuitive feelings on how it should be approached. There are many people who get my sympathy. While I have empathy for the person who has posted above, I know exactly what the situation is and there is nothing short of what I have written that will do one bit of good.

 

No pill is going to pull this man out of his plight. No book will do that. I think this man needs to get really pissed, pissed enough at his circumstances to do something about them. Depression is anger turned inward. When that anger is realized expressed the depression disappears and one gets motivated to change things.

 

This man has an opportunity to be a hero in his life. That will only happen if he pulls himself out of his circumstances and transcends them. The way I did it was taking up photography and at age 14 freelancing for my local major newspaper. I rode my bicycle, ran, walked, hitchhiked...did whatever I could to get to news scenes to make $3 per published picture. I didn't sit around thinking the world was a sucking place and how I was stuck with a bastard father. I didn't preoccupy myself with how life sucked. I took my circumstances and make the very best of them. Those days at the newspaper when I was young were the greatest in my life, thanks to ME.

 

I even got abuse at the newspaper. The older staff photographers hated my guts...because I beat them to news scenes (on foot while they had cars) and got better pictures. They cursed me and tryed to sabatoge my photos in the lab. I got it at home...I got it at the newspaper. But I persisted and was intent that nobody anywhere would get me down. Life was slamming me everywhere I turned by I made the decsion I was going to get the best of it no matter what.

 

Try running around town with a camera and flash around your neck in 95 degree summer weather sometime. But I didn't think about it. My mind was on the end result. I didn't complain about the weather, although looking back I don't know how I did it.

 

Sorry to get into a bit of my story, I didn't want to do that. But you only have a slight bit of it. I won't go into the suicide attempts of my brother and sister, the times my brother ran away, how I had to stay home on weekends to cook and clean while my father yelled and screamed. How I used to get up at 4 a.m., get ready for school, and run out the door to walk four miles to school when my father's alarm clock went off rather than hear his screaming. That four mile walk with a 15 pound bookbag every morning was the most peace I ever got. (Buses in my city didn't run that early). My right arm, the one I used to carry my bookbag, is 1 1/4" longer than my left so when I get suits the coats have to be measured and tailored because the heavy bookbag stretched it.

 

Anyway, there was a lot of crap in my life early on but what I remember about it all was the fascination and awe of getting up at 4 a.m., waiting to hear the morning paper hit the sidewalk outside, rushing out in my underwear to quickly grab it and get back inside in the dark, and opening the paper to see my photos from the day before plastered all over the front page and on page one of the Metro section. How I was able to shoot pictures for the paper and be in school at the same time is a whole other story...but life is full of stories about how people transcended their circumstances to do extraordinary things when they make the decision to do so.

 

I took the crap and made the best of it. That's the only way to get by. Pills are real nice but there is no substitute for realizing that the world doesn't give a damned and the ONLY pay to make it for you is to get out and manage it for yourself.

 

It's real easy to suggest pills for everything and if I though pills would help this poster, I would have been the first to recommend them. If you look at my history here, I have recommended many, many times that people see their doctor and have suggested the medications they inquire about.

 

But, if you think there's a pill that's going to change your life circumstances, get you out of the house, buy you a car, and make life a joy...that just isn't the case. If I thought a pill would make this poster feel joy about life, I would have been the first to suggest it. What pills would do would numb is brain enough for him not to care so much whether his life sucked or not. My purpose in this case is to help this poster to see that taking responsibility away from doctors and pills and command power over life and his circumstances is the ONLY way he can go forward.

 

I left plenty (gigs and gigs) of room below my post for all others with better suggestions to chime in and I prayed that others would come up with better suggestions. But until they come up with a pill to change life circumstances, that isn't the answer here. I hope that others will comes up with good, concrete suggestions for helping this man to loosen himself from the quicksand of self pity and move on to a good life where he is in command.

[moimeme]

Tony -

 

Depression is anger turned inward. When that anger is realized expressed the depression disappears and one gets motivated to change things.

 

WHATEVER the cause of depression, it IS a biochemical illness at its worst and you simply are NOT qualified to make a diagnosis at this distance. Sometimes people are acting stupid and need a wake-up call (shades of Dr. Phil) HOWEVER you are not entitled to make that judgment on a forum; even a practicing psychologist would not be entitled to diagnose a person on a board such as this.

 

Pills are real nice but there is no substitute for realizing that the world doesn't give a damned and the ONLY pay to make it for you is to get out and manage it for yourself.

 

I am actually sad and surprised to see you use the "I pulled myself out of a pit and so can you" BS on this person. SOMETIMES people do get into a pity party and do need to change their thinking, but other times they are actually ill; their seratonin and dopamine are all screwed up, and NO amount of 'wising up' is going to fix or help them at all. In fact, that sort of treatment by people in authority, like you, will often make them worse.

 

In fact, it is EXACTLY this archaic thinking which contributes to the stigmatization of mentally ill people. People like yourself who appear to be intelligent still believe that if your thinking is mixed up, it is your fault. You are FAR behind current science, Tony, and if you are going to be a moderator of a forum like this, I think you should educate yourself further about the science of mental illness before you issue your proclamations.

 

Cognitive therapy is all well and fine for some things but medicine has advanced from the days when Ellis began his stuff and we now know that many ailments of the mind are simply biochemical, the same as with any other organ and just as you cannot 'wise up' and put an end to your own diabetes or blindness, nor can you 'wise up' if your brain's chemicals are on the fritz.

 

In fact, you should be doing exactly the opposite; rather than telling people to try to fix their problems by themselves, you should be advising them to get themselves to their doctors who can help them.

 

I'm sorry you had a hard life, but you have no right to use yourself as a template for everyman. I have had a harder life in some ways and I know others with even worse lives and, rather than thinking I am the bee's knees for having survived it, I thank God that He gave me the strength to withstand my problems.

Go do a search on 'resiliency' in psychology. There's a whole field of study trying to figure out how some people weather life's storms easily while others are shattered by them.

 

Read George Vaillant's 'Adaptation to Life'; written about one of the most famous and important longitudinal psychological studies ever done. The conclusions about why people like you manage to succeed despite such troubles while others are crushed by less difficult lives might open your eyes - hey, maybe even give you some empathy for others.

 

You may or may not have been clinically depressed in your life and you may or may not have experienced a spontaneous remission, but the worst and most egregious mistake any human can make (and it seems people do it all the time) is to assume that every human is exactly like oneself and therefore should behave, react, think, and function exactly like oneself. Perhaps it feeds man's seeming need to feel superior to others. However, it is thinking based on a fallacy; you are not all men and all men are not you and any theory you come up with based on the assumption that you are everyman will also be fallacious.

 

You want to learn something about the brain's functioning? Go to Dr. Daniel Amen's website and watch the film from this link:

http://www.amenclinic.com/ac/media/default.asp

 

You will see visual proof that mental illness is not just an illness of thinking.

 

In sum, Tony, I still think your reply was inexcusable. That Dr. Phil behaves like a boor to people with mental problems is no license for you to do so.

[moimeme]

Missed something and my edit time limit ended a mintue ago:

 

What pills would do would numb is brain enough for him not to care so much whether his life sucked or not.

 

Again, [color=red]wrong[/color]. As insulin does for diabetes, the pills for depression replace the chemicals your body should be making and is not (it's actually a lot more complicated but I'm trying to be simple, here). Until your chemicals are working right, you may very well feel very sorry for yourself because that's exactly what the chemical imbalance does to the brain's function.

 

The pills don't give you joy, of course. What they do is unstick your brain from its negative loop so you CAN get out of the house, etc.

 

And, finally, CRIPES - this lad is ONLY nineteen years old!!!!! Why should he own a house or a car or anything? He's not even twenty!

 

I reiterate, Tony, your reply to this fellow was hateful and absolutely unforgiveable.

[cindy0039]

moimeme - Thank you, thank you, thank you! You said what I wish I could have put into words...and very eloquently I might add.

 

I found the information you cited to be very interesting. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that we are all different and handle things differently, and to make broad blanket statements that we should all be able to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, no matter what the situation, and make lemonade out of lemons is ridiculous.

 

Tony - you state that you know what this person's situation is, but how can you with one post? And another thing. Since you state that depression is nothing more than anger turned inward, does that mean that you just turned yours outward and that is what we're all seeing? hmm

 

P.S. The poster is a FEMALE, not that it matters.

[yes]

I haven't read the whole thread, but I wanted to say that I agree with Tony in that sitting around feeling sorry and complaining will do you ZERO good.

 

Anti-depression pills have temporary effects, but in order to have a long-term effect, one has to change the way he views life. And you cannot do that by sitting around and whining. You have to get up and DO something!

 

Believe me, although I've been fortunate with many things, for years I sat around and felt bad and bored and yucky. Then, I got really really mad at myself for wasting time (partially thanks to Tony here), and got off my ass, and did something. What came of it is that I'm much more content now, and I have a career plan of sorts.

 

So my advice to the original poster is to get your act together and move out. You can visit your grandparents on weekends, you can help them and make sure they're OK, but you also've got your own life to live, and right now you seem to be half-wasting it. You may also want to talk to a counsellor about your concerns about your grandparents.

 

Moving to California maybe was going too far - I mean, if you grandparents are pretty old, it'd be good to stay in the same city as them so that you can help out. Gotta strike a balance there - get your own life on track, yet give them some of your time as well.

 

Best of luck,

-yes

[cindy0039]

Originally posted by crzybeautifl88

I am 19 and live with my grandparents. I have for about 10 years. For the past year I have been feeling like I don't have much time, or that i'm running out of it. I put a rush on myself about everything. I have been planning on leaving for about 2 years now. This past year I was going to move to california with a friend of mine, everything was planned out. At that time I started thinking of how scary it's going to be without my grnadparents there with me........[ I don't know my dad and barely know my mom, my grnadparents are all i've had]

 

Needless to say I didn't go. It's getting to the point now where it's a big decision to stay one night away from here. I just keep thinking maybe I should stay here until they die.......I know that it sounds weird but what if I leave and lose them. My grandpa hasn't been doing so well lately and it's so scary. Like I said I feel liek I don't have any time. I wrote him a letter about 10 minutes ago telling him that I appreciate everything that he has done for me and if I have ever said anything to make it seem liek I didn't care then I didn't mean it.

 

I think that I might be depressed. I read that book, Prozac Nation, it seems liek I relate to a bunch of what she says. For the past week I have had a headache and it won't go away I don't knwo if this relates at all I don't know if anything that I told you relates at all actually..............I'm making myself sound co dependant. I don't think I am...............

 

If you have any questions that might help you figure out anything please feel free to ask, I need all the help I can get.

I don't even feel liek it's all worth living anymore. I won't ever kill myself I have to much restraint, but I want to end it. It just seems liek an easier way to deal with things. I keep trying to tell myself that if I lose weight everything would be fine..... see? I don't make any sense.......... Please anything that you say won't be taken offensively. I see a lot of people post and get mad b/c they hear things they don't want to hear. I won't maybe if someone if firm it'll make me put myslef in therapy fast.

thanks for reading and not thinking i'm a freak. I really appreciate it.

 

I think you're probably going through a rough time right now. My son went through a lot of indecision and what I would describe as depression (even though I'm not a trained professional) when he was your age. And yes, he's 22 now and still lives at home. And I don't see anything wrong with that. Everybody's situation is different. He works full-time and goes to school part-time and we rarely see him. He pretty much leads his own life. I don't see any reason why he HAS to have his own apartment, unless that's what he wants. I see from your profile that you are working and attending school. That's something to be proud of. Maybe doing all that and taking care of your grandparents to a degree is a heavy load to bear, and that's totally understandable. Do you have adults (older I mean, as I realize that technically you're an adult) that you can talk to; relatives, friends, counselors? If you get to a point where you feel like you're in a depression that you can't pull yourself out of, you should definitely look into speaking to a trained professional, just to see what their opinion is. It's nothing to be embarrassed about.

 

How old are your grandparents? How do they feel about you living with them? It sounds like you have a good relationship with them. Why do you want to move out? There are a lot of kids who stay at home until they've finished college, just because it's the easiest way to accomplish their goals and puts less financial stress on them. Do you feel that you're too dependent on your grandparents? There are ways to start gaining more independence while still living there, if that's what you choose to do. These are the questions I have.

 

Hang in there.

[crzybeautifl88]

Yes, I do have a good relationship with my grandparents. They love me being here. I left for two weeks and my grandma couldn't stop crying. I am a little more dependant on them than I want to be. Then again I really don't think that my problem is based on them. I have no complaints about my life or what has been handed to me. I'm not trying to complain. I have been given everything I need and more than what i've wanted from them. They have done everything in their power to make me happy and to make up for what they think i'm missing out on by not having my actual ''parents''. My grandpa bought me two cars! trust me I have nothing to complain about.

 

My problem is with myself. I am in school I do have a job. I'm not laying around all day mooching. I know what I want to do in life, I just don't see me making it. I have been driven by this force all my life to not be like my mom. I've made it. I'm 19 and not pregnant[and still a virgin], i'm in college, and I haven't even let one man let alone two rule my life. I'm happy that i'm not like her,goal accomplished. But, I don't know who I am.

 

I'm always just so sad. Don't get me wrong there are times that I couldn't be happier, but not the majority. I just don't see a future. I have racked my brain for an explaination as to what could make me feel so down. My first thought was maybe[unconsciously] I hate the fact that my parents don't give a damn, but honestly they haven't been around at all, so that can't be it, I don't care.

 

I do miss my sisters. I haven't seen them in over 2 years now............. but I really don't think that's it either. I've always been the type of person who pushes things out of my head. Nothing seems to phase me. In fact I think that 2 months ago was the first time that I ever experienced stress. Even then it wasn't that bad, it last maybe a total of 15 minutes, then I went to sleep. Trust me, I really can't think of anything wrong besides depression. No reason for it, I just am. At least I think.

 

I have been more than lucky with everything. All I have to do is figure out why ,without any reason for it, am I so sad? I keep thinking if I get out of this small town and explore a little maybe i'll be happier. Can a geographic change really be that helpful?

 

I really appreciate you guys taking time out of your day to reply. Tony, I'm not whining or complaining. I completely understand I have been dealt good cards. I completely understand that other people have worse problems than bad hair days. That dosen't necessarily mean that everything is ok in my ''head''. I'm not trying to underestimate the world's probelm's. I just want help figuring out what's wrong with me despite the obvious good things.

 

Again, thanks guys for all your advice. Cindy and moimeme i'd really love to hear from you again . And anybody else that wants to help.

[cindy0039]

My advice is that you could benefit from talking to someone who is either very familiar with your family situation and your background or going to a counselor to talk this all out. It's impossible for anyone to assess your situation online. If you think you're depressed and you meet the criteria (you're familiar with that, right?) then I would definitely recommend that you make an appointment and go talk to a professional. Hey, it can't hurt, right?

[moimeme]

Sorry for getting your gender wrong, crzy!

 

You wrote:

 

"I hate the fact that my parents don't give a damn, but honestly they haven't been around at all, so that can't be it, I don't care.

 

I do miss my sisters. I haven't seen them in over 2 years now............. but I really don't think that's it either. I've always been the type of person who pushes things out of my head. Nothing seems to phase me. In fact I think that 2 months ago was the first time that I ever experienced stress. Even then it wasn't that bad, it last maybe a total of 15 minutes, then I went to sleep."

 

You may think you have shut these things out and that you don't care about them, but I will bet you that if you go to counselling, you will find out that you do care but have buried the pain. That's just a guess, but the attachment to family is a very important part of human development and that sort of loss would be a VERY good reason for you to become depressed.

 

Even though depression is a chemical problem, it can be triggered by life situations. Sometimes you do need to talk things out with a counsellor and resolve them. One theory (not by a psychiatrist) is that depression slows you down - or even grinds you to a halt - to get you to look for underlying problems!

 

Here's an illustration for you about caring even if you think you don't. I had a relationship with a fellow who had kids. I grew very fond of the kids and we all got along great, particularly his daughter who I first met when she was 13. The fellow and I broke up and because his ex-wife (the kids' mom) always hated me (I had nothing to do with their breakup!), she has refused to let the kids see me.

 

Tonight I went to an event and that girl was there. I thought maybe I was getting hard-hearted because I don't think about the kids much and I don't pine for them, but seeing her made me very sad. You see, I know I can't do anything about missing them but my heart (well, really my subconscious brain) knows that I do miss them a lot.

 

It is a very hard thing to be separated from your parents and the sisters you miss and I really do think that talking to somebody - if not your grandparents then a counsellor - will help you a lot.

 

By the way, I completely agree that you shouldn't be in a rush to move out of your grandparents' place. If you all get along well and you are in school, you might as well stay with them until you have graduated; it will do you all a great deal of good. Also, try not to look forward to your whole future; that can be daunting for anybody; just focus on your week or month and being a great student while you work out your problems. You will spend 60, 70, or even 80 years away from your grandparents and out in the world so there's no reason to think that you should zip right out there right now.