Am I depressed? The question I have been asking myself for a while.

The one particular question I ask myself every single day is Am I depressed? I've never really understood depression all that well, I have small knowledge about it. I'm 17 years old, I finished School last year & started my first year of college in September 2014. I was never really the brightest lad at school, I moved from my first high school towards the end of my 8th year, so i started my new high school in my 9th year, I had to move because we moved house but the new where i moved was outside of the city i lived in, about 30 minutes away. I had plenty of friend's at my old school & outside of school, I got into trouble at times but I was happy & I was still quite young. At my new school i eventually made friend's, I didn't feel as if i fitted in all that well but eventually i did & I'm friend's with the same people until this very day. A few years into my years at my new school I no longer spoke to any of my old friend's accept from a few but they were just friend's i met in primary school which ended up going to different high school's than me. I was never the brightest lad in school, I struggled a lot with particular subjects, I was always in the bottom set's, I never got into trouble at my new high school, never at all. From most people knowing i wasn't the brightest lad around, I guess you could say i was sort of picked on because of it, even my friend's made jokes about it, sometimes i took it as a joke but sometimes it hurt, I may of shown that i found it funny towards my friends but what they didn't realize is that it hurt sometimes so that made me feel down a lot. I never liked school or any kind of education anyway but towards my last two years of school & ended up taking days off and getting to the point where i had bad attendance so the school & my parents were always going on at me about it all of the time, I always felt hopeless, I just like a huge failure & that i would never get anywhere in life, I always thought i was ugly, I was always tired I never wanted to get up in the morning, I just felt as if i had no energy in me.

So eventually i finished school, I did all my GCSE'S & course work. As i expected my grades were terrible, wasn't a surprise to me. So for the summer we had off i didn't go out very much, I stayed home nearly every day playing video games, lounging around & watching tv, pretty boring stuff, So i never really saw my friend's all that much then. Around the beginning of the summer holidays everybody was applying for their college course that they would be going on to in September, I wanted to do graphics design which is a level 1 course but sadly my GCSE'S weren't good enough for me to go onto any kind of level 1 course so instead the only option i had was a course called Vocational Studies which is a programme designed for those who wish to study a varied and interesting level 1 course to develop confidence and progress towards further education. Another really good friend of mine who was very similar to me within education ended up doing the same course so i was with him for the whole year, so for most of the year I was happy, I had a lot of friend's & everyone was kind & caring, I even ended up getting myself a well paid part time job at a supermarket. After a few week's of working there a ended up slacking on college and not turning up because i was so tired from work so i couldn't wake up in the morning for college. I couldn't change my hours because they were contracted so i had to do them.

After two month's I quit my job because i couldn't handle the hours between work & college at the same. After leaving my job, I still continued to not turn up to college on the 4 days i was suppose to on some week's. Throughout most of my year of college i became very anxious, I was very worried about what people thought of me, I was insecure about myself, I thought i was ugly, when i went outside or to a restaurant i was worried about eating in front of people & i always felt as if everybody was looking at me or talking about me. I felt like this ever since. Although i went out more often I tried my best to deal with it but it wasn't easy, someday's i felt like crying or screaming. It was getting worse & worse by the minute. At the end of my first year at college I ended up passing my english & maths exam which i was so glad about until I was told that i was no longer aloud to go onto a level 1 course for my second year because my attendance wasn't good enough & i wasn't aloud to repeat the same the course again. This made me so angry & upset, I didn't know what to do. Ever since that day & throughout the whole summer i didn't go out once, I stayed home every single day, I stayed up all night & slept in the day instead, i have no money, no clothes, my parents refuse to give me money, there always on my back about getting a job, I overeat alot, I've put on alot of weight, I eat at night & in the evenings, I do the same routine everyday, somedays i wont even shower, I feel weak, unneeded, ugly & my anxiety is even worse, I can't even leave my house, im too scared, i feel as if everyone's against me, sometimes i wish i wasn't even alive. I feel all of this everyday, even till this very day.

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Corbin, I care about what happens to you. I know how tough it feels and can empathise with you. I've been through some really tough times in the past, and so I know that things can get a lot better.

What if it were OK to feel the way you do? What if you could accept yourself as you are and be compassionate with yourself? What if you could just be yourself? What if you no longer needed to fear judgement from others? How would that feel? What if the past was just in the past and you could choose to no longer let it affect you? What if you could choose each and every moment who you want to be?

Re-read those questions a few times. You don't need to find any answers. Sometimes, just asking the right questions can open up new possibilities in your life. Just allow yourself feel whatever arises.

From *personal* experience (I am not a doctor), I can recommend a few techniques or avenues that you may want to look into. (But know that it's also OK if you don't want to, or they don't appeal to you. Trust yourself - I won't judge.) These can support any other traditional therapy options from a qualified therapist/doctor. The first is EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), also known as "Tapping", there are a lot free resources on the Internet.

Maybe a little energy healing work (like Reiki) could be beneficial. The people at the Distant Healing Network (DHN.org) offer free sessions.

A less "woo woo" option is called "Focusing", and is another of the tools I frequently use. A free, short, easy to follow, course can be found at focusingresources.com

On another note, just because you can't do a course at a particular college, doesn't mean you can't learn elsewhere. edx.org offers a load of free online courses on all sorts of subjects. There are a lot of prestigious universities running those courses, and they don't usually have any entrance requirements. Many of them also offer an option to get some form of diploma or certificate (they sometimes cost extra, but all instruction is free. So doing the course is always generally going to be free.)

Another resource for learning is Alison.com (again, the online tuition is free), here's a link to the graphic design related courses on offer at the moment: alison.com/learn/digital-cr...

I hope some of this stuff helps you. Remember, I do care about what happens to you - and I'd love to see you shine and be happy.

Infinite Blessings!