reflection friday

once in a while on friday i will post a diary or journal entry from the past, to let you into my whole story and journey with depression - not just what is going on currently. 

april 20 & 21 

2004

"life is kind of weird right now i must say.

i feel... disoriented? i don't know the right word.

i kind of feel out of it. and confused. and really unhappy, almost depressed. and really stressed out. yet i'm not. i'm still smiling, and i still laugh at everything, and i'm still finding happiness in really simple things like i usually do. i feel close to my friends, but far away. i want to be at home, but i want to go away somewhere. i want to surround myself with people, but i want to be alone. what happened to me, and when did it happen?...

do my eyes really show it? that i'm tired? that i'm bored? that i'm stressed? that i'm sick? that i'm unhappy? that i'm restless? that i'm confused...?

why do i act happy, and when i act happy i feel happy, and then when i'm not distracted anymore i go back to this. 

i don't like it.

i miss me a lot.

i'm not really depressed. i don't feel sad. but somehow i know i am. i know i am. i just don't know why.

my eyes are making me sad. i don't like it."

it's amazing to go back to old journal entries from when i was 16 years old and see myself trying to figure it out - trying to get some answers. i would sit on my bed for hours every day after school and just cry and cry and cry before i started my homework. at the time, it seemed like high school drama. i mean, everyone in high school goes through drama and heightened emotions - all the changing hormones make everything seem like the beginning or the end of the world. even still, i think i knew somewhere deep down that something was wrong. i don't necessarily remember that feeling - that sense that maybe i was depressed. but i wrote it down. i knew i was depressed, i knew i was sad and i didn't know why. it's a tough thing, to start struggling with depression as a teenager, when it's so easy to write someone off as a drama queen. i wish i had listened to myself better, i wish i had asked for help sooner. i just didn't know. and it's okay not to know for a while, i think. but when you do - when you do have that feeling deep down that something is wrong - i encourage you to ask for help. let your family know. let your friends know. tell someone who loves you. ask them for help. ask them to encourage you to see a therapist if you need one. tell someone. 

listen to yourself.