today, im not gonna blog abt my sucky life. here's a story frm THE DEPRESSION SOURCEBOOK: 2nd ENDITION.



Alice remembers being sad as a child. She can recall a lonely feeling while playing by herself with her dolls. "I always felt like a bit of an outside," she says, "and never really sure that the kids accepted me. I was painfully self-conscious and lacked self-confidence." Her mother was prone to bouits of irritability and temper outbursts and seemed extemely sensititve to anything her chilren or husband did, which could be constructed as rejection. She needed a great deal of reassurance. Alice recalls her mother as being "hard to please". Alice would learn many years later that her mother had once tried to commit suicide. Alice's father had a drinking problem and would often get verbally abusive to his wife and children when drunk.

Alice often felt inadequate and bad about herself and afraid that she would fail. When she did not do as well as she would have liked in school, she tended to feel grumpy and down. Sometimes kids her age would make fun of her. She did not know how to deal with this and often felt very hurt. She got a reputation as a crybaby. Although attractive, as a teen she did not dat because of her lack of self-confidence.

Alice did not complain about being sad and caused no trouble in school. The problems her parents and teachers noticed - her occasional moodiness, irritability, and sensitivity, for instance - they ascribed to her personality. "That's just the way she is," they would say.

Alice's anxiety about not doing well in school made her avoid the more academically challenging courses. Her anxiety really got in her way when she had to take standardized tests. Test scores did not reflect her true ability. Her mediocre test scores made her feel even worse about herself. She did not try out for athletic teams or become involed in more challenging extracurricular activities. Although she was a good flute player and played in the school band, she avoided playing solos because she was afraid she might not do well. The few friends Alice made were clearly not as bright or talented as she. She felt more competent that way. Although she felt sad and lonely when alone, she preferred solitary activities to those with her friends.

It was not until Alice went away to college that she had her first episode of major depression. The change in environment, the social pressures, and the intense academic competition were unsettling for her. "In high school, I was a big fish in a little lake academically. The pople I hung out with could not do as well as I did. In college," she say, "everyone was smart and I felt kind of slow." Alice also noticed that everyone seemed to be dating. She was shy and had very poorly developed social skills, so the young men on campus did not pay much attention to her. This made her feel worse aboput herself. When a boy who had a passing interest in her did not continue pursuing her (he felt she was kind of grumpy and not much fun), she felt crushed. Her self-confidence and self-esteem plummeted.



BLAHBLAHBLAHH.. too lazy to type the whole story.

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he ate my heart, then he ate my brain ♥