It's like I can't fight it...,

[joung]

I can't not really describe the feeling that I going through right now but I have been dealing with depression for nearly five years and everyday seems worse than the next. The most frustrating thing about this is that my mother does not believe that I have depression. She claims that I am doing this as an act and that I should just snap out of this. I really wish it were that easy but I can not just snap out of this deep funk that I'm in. I wake up knowing that another day in life has been wasted doing nothing. I WANT to do something but I can never keep myself on track as sometimes I fear to even do things that I used to love.

I love to draw but now I find myself fearing that my pictures will turn out horrible or if people will not comment on. I fear that I will always make mistakes and that people are talking about me each time I turn or walk by someone. I have NEVER felt this way in the past and I really can not remember when this started but I do remember going off a deep end during high school when my buddies would tell me about the great things they would do and I had nothing to tell them. It's just so horrible because it feels like I just can't do anything about it. It's like I'm trapped or something. I need all the advice and help I can get so please, if anyone has any advice....

[betly]

I am sorry to hear you are having a hard time. Your story sounds a lot like my own story. I'm in and out of depression and anxiety nowadays, but its getting better. It has been 15 years of depression and many more than that of the anxiety. It hurts when people we love don't understand, but I think some people would have to actually experience it to be able to grasp it. Too bad we can't make them 'get it'.

Just know that what you feel is real and that it’s not your fault. Take care of yourself and ask for help when it’s needed. It’s hard to be good to ourselves sometimes I think in the midst of depression but it really helps to think about ourselves positively, talk gentle to ourselves. The thing that has helped me the most was changing (and I'm still practicing this) how I think by catching the negative and replacing those thoughts with positive ones. What I choose to think about and say to myself help greatly. It seemed impossible at first, as if I had no control over my thinking, but it eventually started to work. It affects the way I feel. The depression still comes but it is not as bad as it was.

Art is my passion too and I get intimidated or just plain unmotivated as well when in deep depression. I haven’t found any tricks to make that better, sorry.

Medication and therapy have helped me. Exercise helps but I don't do that when I'm real depressed.

I'm curious, are you are on any meds or are seeing a therapist?

[chaekyu]

Hi, Im just a wanderer on this site and found your post and it seemed to fit with me. I’m 17, been up and down in moods for about 4-5 years, worst years being when I was 13 and 16. Various health problems including developing OCD that’s slowly progressing. I never told my parents about anything like this, lived with it till a couple of months ago when I had a breakdown if you could call it that. Was going to go to the doctors to be put on medication but I really wanted to delay it, scared I suppose.

I understand about the parents thinking it’s just "teenage angst" or "an act to get attention" Those two sentences drive me up the wall and down the other side. This was why I never told parents anything, Scared of being mocked, didn’t know how to say it, I have some issue with people and attachments I haven’t really studied it further but I just don’t really get close to people, Im really awkward hugging my dad and physically cant hug any of my siblings.

Vie had many an argument with my mum about my ocd. and like you said "really wish it were that easy but I can not just snap out of this deep funk that I'm in" Its the same with me, I always just end up shouting in frustration that if I could not wash my hands 100 times a day I would! I wouldn’t have ocd if I didn’t have to do this.

Art is a big passion of mine as well, I have trouble, like you, when completing a painting, I would be looking at it everyday, just staring at it and everyday I would hate it more and more until I would ruin it or throw it away. Im doing an art course now and at the moment Im going to fail because I just haven’t got the motivation to do it. But you really need to just keep saying to yourself, Don’t give a d*** about what anyone says or thinks about your art, if your happy with it, that’s good enough, and it should be.

Do you mind if ask, How old are you? I assume you are over 16, you know you can go to the doctors yourself, confidentially and get help. If your parents don’t understand, there are plenty of other people who do.

Just keep positive, take care of yourself, keep drawing and if you need to talk, either just rant on here or seek some help from a professional.

[joung]

Yeah, thanks for the comments and you have basically sumed up what I feel like att times. I can only remember feeling this way in 10th grade. It was like something fell on me like a brick wall. It was just this overwhelming feeling of self-doubt, shame, anger, and motivation. I just didn't feel excited anymore and I felt like I was just a failure at life. As if everything was passing me by in favor or another (or in better terms, my friend around me) I just feel like a lose cause and the fact that my mother thinks I faking this doesn't make me feel any better. It's like she just doesn't get it. It's bad enough that I feel like s*** nearly 80% of the time but then having someone blast me on 'snapping out of it' makes me feel even worse.

My art teacher said it to me best and so far, it's been the best advice that I've gotten so far and that was two years ago.

I know why you feel so down. I think you feel left out of things all the time. You see your friends talking about all the things that they have done and you feel overpasses or unnoticed when you can't join them in with that excitement. You want to get out but it seems that something always stops you.

This isn't word for word (it was 2/3 years ago) but yeah. I don't do anything and all that. Every time my friends asked me to go somewhere I was always told no from my mother so in the end, I just had to listen to all the 'exciting' things that they did. It was like I can never experience anything on my own. I always have to listen to someone else tell me the tell and only long for it even though it never happens. To this day it just astounds me how my mother can ask me why I never hung out with my friends when she never allowed out with them anyway. It wasn't as if they were doing anything anyway. They always asked me out to dinner and to the arcade. That was it. They even asked me out to a comic convention but I was denied that as well. I always ended up I had something to do even though I just feared about my mother saying no all the time. I missed out on so much during high school and in my second year of college the same thing is happen all over again.

I can't remember the last time I have really enjoyed myself. It's like I can't escape this and like the title of my thread said, it's like a losing battle. I TRY to improve myself but then I just get knocked back down over and over and over again. It's like no matter how hard I try, I'll always be unhappy. I just don't know what to do. I just want to know that feeling of being able to smile and enjoy myself. I just don't know what to do.