I don't think I am critically depressed but I surely know I'm not alright

[lilbitlovesick]

I'm a fifteen year old  who likes to watch cartoons, read extensively and widely, paint and play music. I don't really think my life is as bad as other people's, I know others have far more misfortune than I do. However, that doesn't change the fact that I come home from school everyday feeling nowadays more tired than usual, as if I am being forced to be there. This says a lot about me because I adore going to school. It doesn't change the fact that I constantly have been excluded from my major group of friends because of my interests. It doesn't change the amount of stress I have loaded upon me to be successful in my studies. Growing up with Asian parents who believe that maths and sciences, my two weakest subjects, are the life determiners while my strengths lie in creative areas like English, music and visual arts can be difficult to bear with. It's hard to watch everyone move on with their lives while I have just been stuck in the past wishing to be somewhat important to someone again. I was told by a person in my class that I was "fantasising about having sex with book characters because I could never have the real experience". These kinds of rumours people say we should learn to ignore but it's hard to ignore something that is personally attacked. I found beyondblue and I saw the positivity that people had here regardless of the extremes of each others' stories and I decided maybe I should share my own. I may just make a new friend or have advice that will get me somewhere. This is a basic summary of who I am but I will firstly ask if there is a way I can stop feeling so negatively about what I like to do and to be more optimistic about things like relationships with people at school and with my family as well as with schoolwork.

Thank you for reading, sincerely,

Lina

[Paul]

Hi Lina,

Welcome to Beyond Blue forums. I'm really glad you've decided to tell us about you and reach out. It sounds like there is a lot of pressure coming from many areas for you to do things that aren't necessarily "you". That can make the pressure pretty intense. Then to have stupid people make up stuff about sex with book characters - they should go back to kindergarten.

Have you thought about having a chat with your school counsellor? They might be a good resource to help you at lease get a few things off your chest and express some of the negativity.

Have you had a good chat with your parents, because it sounds like being forced to do academic type work rather than creative work is what is causing you some heart ache.

You asked about if there is a way to help you stop feeling negativity about school and things you like to do and also about family and friends and relationships.

There is, and it's sometimes one thing that is clouding how we feel about a lot of things. What is it about these things that you are negative about? What do you say to yourself as you are experiencing these things? What do you say to yourself when you have to go to maths or science? What do you say to yourself when your parents reinforce that success is measured by how well you do in the academics?

Some things to think about.

There's some resources on the website here specifically for young people "For me" then "Young people" there might be some ideas in there for you as well.

Try observing what you say to yourself over the next few days, even though it might not seem like it, we're always talking to ourselves in response to things we see, hear, feel and think. if you can tune in to that self-talk and change the tuning to be more creative or fun and less negative, that might be a good start to short circuiting the negative things.

Take care Lina, 

Stay in touch

Paul