I had sent these 2 emails to my counselor to see if she could answer my questions. She responded by asking if I have seen a counselor outside of school. I didn't answer her, but I have not seen one outside of school, and the only help I got was my mentor, and I never really talked to her about anything important.
I was just wondering if I am overthinking everything, or if I had been living in depression my whole life. I don't seem to be depressed now, but it has only been recently(about 2-3 years ago) that I have stopped hating myself.
Sorry if some of this doesn't make sense, I didn't really take the time to re-read everything and change what you wouldn't understand. ...That and it is 1:30 AM right now, and all I want to do is read before mom tells me to go to bed, not read through something that would only make me feel bad about myself, even if it was me who originally wrote these emails.
First Email Sent:
My problem. My questions will come after.
When I was a kid, I started hating myself. Don't know why, I just did. I hated myself enough that my mom signed me up for Big Brothers, Big Sisters(A mentor program for kids). That helped, but I didn't really stop hating myself until about early 8th grade to early 9th grade. I have bad memory with some things, so I don't really remember when, exactly, I stopped.
While I stopped hating myself, I didn't really start liking myself. I stayed mostly neutral towards myself. Again, bad memory rears it huge head. As time goes/went on, I have/had moments when I hate myself, for various reasons; I need to get a job, I need to take school more seriously, I don't do anything other than read, so on and so forth. I, eventually, get myself to forget about the problem; I'm not the only one who doesn't have a job, I am doing fine with most of my classes, I don't need to stop reading, and so on and so forth.
There are times when I just think to myself; I am so stupid. For various reasons; I think of something that I don't want to think of, I think a stupid thought, Automatic thought. Eh, I'm used to it.
There were some times when I almost cut myself. I told you about one time, I think. The other time, I was just emotional and daydreaming, and I started crying, and felt like cutting. My hands were twitching, and I couldn't get myself to stop crying until I woke my mom up. My daydreams are a bit, morbid. I sometimes daydream about mom dying, and what I do afterwards, and what'll happen to me in this fandom/universe, and continue the daydream. Normally, I try to counteract those daydreams with daydreams that do not have me in them. The daydreams without me in them go along the lines of one of the previous fanfictions/stories I read; This character is in this fandom/universe, what will they do, and so on.
Reading helps. It distracts me, makes me stop thinking whatever I was thinking in order to think about the story. In middle school, I didn't read from the internet. I had hard copy books, and I was happy reading them when I could. Then the teachers started taking them away when I read in class. So, when I found out about fanfiction, I was hooked. I could read my books in class, but in computer class? Time to read even more. Reading then became more a habit, than a distraction, though it still is my main coping method. At least, I think that's how I use reading. No one really explained coping methods, though it is mentioned in a lot of sites, and I got the gist of it.
So, moving on, reading is my life. Almost literally. Not exactly healthy, I'm sure. Luckily(or not so), I found other ways to distract myself. Internet, Youtube, Facebook, music, and games that I don't play everyday. I also found a friend over the internet. Have never met her in real life, but she is still my friend, even if she might be an old man. Though, I doubt it. Again, my lifestyle is not exactly healthy. This lifestyle, being on the internet whenever I can, also makes me accidentally forget to eat. One minute, I should probably eat something, Hour later, Oh wait, I was supposed to eat something.... Whoops. You get my point, I hope. Not healthy.
There is also the concern of random chest pain. The internet is not always correct, but I did read somewhere that a symptom of mental illness can be chest pain. With how sporadic the pain is, I don't always remember when the pain occurs, or how bad it is. I do know it is on the right side of my chest, right above my breast.
My question(s): Am I mentally ill? Was I depressed when I was a kid? How can I get better, if I don't know what is wrong with me? Because there is something wrong with my mentality. It is NOT healthy, I know this. And I do not know why I hate/hated myself, so if I don't know the why, how can I know the what? If that makes any sense. I also don't know how to fix my mentality. Mostly, I've been pushing away the bad thoughts by telling myself to shut up, or by reading and forgetting about them.
There is also the concern of emotions. It is normal to not be dating when you are sixteen years old, but is it normal to not have a crush on someone, or rather, not know when you have a crush on someone? I have had one real crush, and that was on a celebrity, so that doesn't really count. There was one time in elementary school, but I believe I was just forcing myself to have a crush, as one of my friends at the time, who was younger than me, had a boyfriend. Promptly after I found out, she broke up with him. I don't know why. So, it seemed like the thing to do, have a crush or have a boyfriend. It just seemed like it was normal for my friend, who was either 8 or 9, to have a boyfriend. So, if it was normal for her, my thought was probably, should I be having a crush right now? That guy is cute, let's go with him. Because he was kind of cute. I just didn't really think of him that way, except that he was cute. After discovering the joys of reading, I forgot about having any crushes. The thought that its not normal to not have a crush on someone was there, but I decided it didn't matter.
Simply put, as you got from my rambling, my mentality is not healthy. And while I am sure it is getting better, in some way(I hope...), I want to know if I am/was mentally ill or if I am/was depressed.
Second Email I Sent To Her.
I was reading a some-what sad story, and one of the comments this one character stated made me think. So, I went to Google.
I was wondering how one would get themselves out of depression. I looked it up, and it was just normal information; Be active and stuff like that. There were links at the bottom of the page, though. One of them was '10 Physical Signs of Depression', or something like that. I was curious, and looked at it.
One of the symptoms is migraines. This got me thinking, as I have had 2 migraines before. Once in, 6th grade, I believe? And one in 7th grade. I remember that one of them had to be in 8th or 6th grade, as I had had the migraine in Mrs. Bolda's class, and I only had one migraine in her class, and 8th grade wasn't horrible. I can't exactly remember... The other migraine was in English, or ELA, or whatever it was called.
So, something you should know, if I hadn't already stated, is that middle school wasn't exactly the best. I hadn't stopped hating myself until late 8th grade, early 9th grade. Along with being mocked, not much, mind, but enough, and not exactly having friends, as I only talked to them in school, and the friends I had in Evergreen trailer park were on and off friends, and that is not saying much as I was excited to be moving away from them 7th grade-8th grade.
6th grade started out pretty horrible, from what I remember. Lunch consisted of sitting at the corner table, in the corner seat. At first, I had the table to myself. Just me and my books. Soon, some boys started sitting at the table. Just the other half of the table, not the half I was sitting in. Soon after that, I was surrounded by boys. I didn't really care, except for feeling a bit possessive over the table, as I had been sitting there first and they had dared seem to take it from me. That was only a little, mind. After a while, a month or so? I was in the bathroom, and figured out that if you slap your hands together when you have the soap in them, the soap will splatter all over. We, the girls that were in there and I, soon had a bit of a soap fight.
After thinking back on it now, I can't really remember having that much fun before that... I'm sure the classes were fun, as much as they can be.
Anyways, we had a soap fight, and got in trouble because some soap was in one of the girls' hair, and, uh, the detention teacher saw. We got lunch detention, and I was moved from my precious table to a different one. After the lunch detention(s) was over, I couldn't move back to my old table, as the boys had overtaken it. The other girls at the table asked why I was still sitting there, and I told them so. They didn't really care. Rachel, I think, called me over to the table next to it, and I made my first friends. Rachel, Courtney, Amira, and Dana. Well, from I can remember. It was mostly them, but I'm sure there were others... Anyways, I made friends, and became really obsessed with hugging everyone. I don't know why, but I felt the need to hug them all the way til 10th grade. 11th grade, I haven't really seen them much. I've seen Dana in English this tri, and I occasionally see Courtney in the halls.
I'm getting off track. Well, not really, but it feels like it. I was explaining how middle school was, in more detail.
7th grade, I don't think was that bad? The event that stands out in my mind was at the end of the year, last day. I was in science class, and the other students around me were asking me this question. They had been asking me this question for a long while by that time, and the first few times or so, it was amusing. But I had gotten into the habit of brushing everyone I was not comfortable with off, telling people who said hi to me in class to shut up(they laugh), telling people in choir who compliment me to shut up(they laugh). It became habit. Well, they were asking this stupid question, over and over, even though I wasn't going to answer anytime soon. After it stopped being amusing, it felt as though they were mocking me. I asked the teacher why he wasn't doing anything, and he had said he hadn't noticed.
End of the year, last day, we were watching a movie, and the teacher had stepped out of the room. The students around me were asking me the question again, and I just couldn't take it. I walked out of the room, and sat in the hallway. It was actually more comfortable there than in the room. The other students, I believe, but I could be wrong, laughed. The teacher came back, and saw that I wasn't in the room. I had explained it to him, and he went into the room, and yelled at them. He told me if I wanted to sit out in the hallway, it was fine. After awhile, I went back into the room. They had taken my chair, someone else was sitting in it, and the chair was warm. I had wanted to go back out into the hallway, where it was quiet, but it would have been embarrassing to walk back out, and it was a small matter of pride; I had wanted to go back in, so I was going to stay in. I can't remember clearly, but I think I had either been crying, or on the verge of crying.
I can't remember much of 8th grade. I remember that Deanna, my mentor/Big Sister, who had been there since I was a kid, 1st or 2nd grade, had to stop coming because of work. I understood, but didn't exactly get the message that she wasn't coming back. I waited the rest of the year waiting for her to come back. The guidance counselor said that if she had known, she would have gotten me a different mentor. I didn't want a different mentor, I had wanted Deanna. I didn't understand why she didn't get this. I also don't think I realized at the time that I never really talked with Deanna about anything. The time spent with her was playing games, nothing else. It was a safe-haven from the bad thoughts. That's about all I can remember. I do remember that I had brought my dog to the school for one of the teachers to meet. That was fun.
Was, any of this relevant? Of course it was. I think it was? Anyways, back to my original question; migraines being part of depression.
I've come to the conclusion, that I had spent most of my life in depression, awhile ago. Most likely, before I even thought of emailing you. The conclusion makes sense...
I was wondering if the migraines I had during middle school were caused by my depression. I wasn't in the best of places during that time, though at the time, it was all normal to me; the thoughts, everything. Did I have migraines because I was depressed? Or am I thinking too much into it?
Thank you for reading all of this, or just skimming through. I wouldn't blame you for skimming, I did write a lot...
Thank you.
I don't want to exist
