What do I do?

daguuy · Post by **daguuy** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 11:34 pm

Death metal is by far the best music to listen to if your angry/depressed if you can get into it. Don't get sad, get mad! Goodwill always has some kind of portable music player you can get.

Jongamer · Post by **Jongamer** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:40 am

Man I hate my life right now

While sitting here in class right now, I just got a detention for wearing my jacket

WTF is up with that?

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:15 pm

Still not sure what to do, I talked to my mom, she's figuring out something. And she's one of the few who completely agrees with my side of things. Duh, she's my mom, right?

As for a music player, remember the free one that I didn't get? I talked to the guy who has it (a friend who's quite reasonable and nice), and he'll give it to me for free after he's done taking it apart and the likes, because it's pretty messed up. It seems like a firmware issue (only loads to the main screen 50% of the time) but he says he reloaded it. It has several dent marks in the back of it.

It is an iRiver something or other. If it's a HD problem, I may be able to swap it out for the one in that Zen.

I'm giving him my SNES games I have no system for in exchange, mostly because I jsut want to get rid of them. He's pumped for "The Great Waldo Search", I put it on par with ET for Atari.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 5:08 am

What did you say? You want to hear my story? Alright, check this out...

I was pulled out of school in 4th grade. My mom didn't feel I was getting a good enough education in a public school. You know, 'cause I'm a friggin' genius 'n stuff.

That, and because my mom freaks out about school shootings and such.

I have been homeschooled ever since. I am now 17, have not had a single friend for that what... 10, 11 years or so? I've never ever had a girlfriend either. I'm not allowed to use IM because my older brother, after several years of cybering (AKA Cybersex), stupidly got caught.

I used to go to the anime club at my brother's college sometimes on Wednesday night, and there are some people there that I talk to every once in a while, but I never made friends with them because I can't "hang out" with them. They barely learned my name. Most of them knew me as "Dean's little brother" (Dean = older brother's name, obviously). Now that we've moved about a half hour away from the college to a house on 3.5 acres with a (now) abandoned farm behind us, I haven't been able to go to a single meeting all semester mostly due to lack of money (gas prices = death). I live in Tennessee with my mother, step-father and brother, and the rest of my family lives in Michigan. So I can't even really hang out with a cousin or something and call him/her a "friend".

On the money note, our family hasn't really had any for... well, most of my life, really. Me and my brother have been sleeping on the floor for about 8 years, and we don't have a couch in our living room. I don't get any allowance of any kind... the word is relatively foreign to me, actually.

The only times I ever really "get" anything material-wise is for my birthday and Christmas.

Ha! Beat that! ^-^ Seriously though, despite all of that, our family is surprisingly NOT trailer trash.

And, on the rare occasion that I actually speak with a female that's not my mother or a cousin/aunt/grandmother every once in a while over the phone, I have absolutely no problem talking to them. Why? I don't know... it might have something to do with the fact that I gave up looking for a "girlfriend" a long time ago. No reason to get nervous around them if you're not even in the mindset that you're ever going to do ANYTHING AT ALL with them, right? Seriously, that makes sense, right? The good news about this is that once I finally go to college and start trying to date girls, I will have built up my confidence enough from when I wasn't looking to date to where I shouldn't have any problems there either. It also helps that, despite my geeky appearance and acne, I am apparently pretty hot, say random college girls. *shrug*

I want nothing more than a relationship. I don't want to have meaningless sex with random girls. I don't want to "pick up chicks at the bar". That's not in ANY way me. I've always wanted to find ONE girl, and stay committed to her. I guess that bodes well for me, right? Here's the MAIN point that you should take out of my story: You usually lose touch with your high school friends/girlfriends anyway. If we've gone this far already, (I'm 17, you're 18... we're almost there) just stick it out 'till you get to college. THAT'S when the real socialization starts. No, I'm not saying live in a cave and don't talk to anyone until you're ready to start college, that's stupid. After all, you need "practice" - for lack of a better word - with socializing, right? Well, probably. I don't at this point (somehow). People that know my situation always tell me that despite how sheltered I am, I seem perfectly normal and if anything, OVERLY sociable when I'm out in public, but that's beside the point.

In the mean time, just stick it out, and do what everyone else has said. Listen to some Dragonforce and try your very hardest to rock out to it on your electric guitar. That's what I do.

Seriously. I play electric and acoustic, and I'm asking for a bass for Christmas. My brother has also shown a very sudden interest in drumming upon seeing "DTXMania" (Google it), and he wants an electronic drumset for Christmas to play it, so I'll hopefully be learning that too. I've been wanting to learn to play drums for a long time now anyway, and so has my mother, so it all works out. ^-^ Piano, too. I want to play piano, but for some reason I REALLY don't wanna learn how.

My mother has a piano and has always wanted to teach me and my brother how to play it, but I just haven't wanted to. And we never really have a good time to do so. If we ever get the Yamaha Motif XS8 my mother and I have been eying up, that will probably end up being the time I learn to play piano.

I must also highly suggest anime and Japanese music. Anime is a large part of my life and it's amazing how warm and fuzzy a lot of it makes me feel.

And a lot of Japanese music, mostly the stuff FROM anime, just puts a smile on your face to matter how depressed you are.

Trust me. Don't think anime's for you? Neither did my own mother who's in her mid-40's. But she has been watching Death Note with me and my brother (we've already seen it once) for the past few nights, 2-3 episodes a night, and is rather enjoying it... SUBBED.

She was as anti-anime as any other parent, but we finally forced her to sit down and watch the first two episodes of Death Note with us and she was HOOKED. After the second episode was over, she said, "Yeah... I'm gonna have to see how this ends..." and immediately requested we watch the third episode.

We actually just finished watching episode 11 a half hour ago. That said, she also plays most Guitar Hero songs on Expert, so maybe she's just FRIGGIN' AWESOME, I dunno. ^-^ Oh, but if you're gonna watch an anime that DOESN'T further make you want to kill yourself (I think that's what you're trying to get away from...), it probably shouldn't be Death Note, although I do highly HIGHLY recommend it for when you finally get out of your funk.

So yeah. That's what I think, anyway. In a nutshell, do everything everyone else has said. Listen to more music, and start playing an instrument. Personally, I think I'm worse off than you, but I've learned to deal with it thanks to plenty of experience, so I think you should trust my word.

Who wouldn't think that?

By the way, *reads through his post* I'm AWESOME. ^-^
^ High self-esteem helps a lot, too. Just don't get too arrogant.

P.S. In case you were interested, my day consists of waking up at 12:00AM-3:00PM, doing a few chores, and then working on various websites me and my mother maintain. When there's no work to be done, I research stuff on the computer (for X project that I know I won't have the money to buy parts for anytime soon

), play my guitar or post here... or go YouTube-ing.

Then, when the day's over, me and my brother usually watch a few episodes of whatever anime we're watching (we always make sure we have something to watch... thank you, BitTorrent), then he goes to bed, preparing for whatever he has to do the next day (work or school), and then I do all the same computer-related stuff on the faster computer in the livingroom once everyone's in bed 'till 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning.

Yes, the days run together quite a bit for me, but again, I'm used to it. Every thing will change in a year when I'm in college. 'Till then, I should actually be thinking about studying for my GED, come to think of it.

Ecksem Diem · Post by **Ecksem Diem** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 8:48 am

Sorry to hear about your situation, Kurt; I know what it's like. Unfortunately, the only way I was able to deal with it was to let it pass; I wish I knew then what I know now, I might've been able to do something about it.

For a purely physical, drug-free solution, I can suggest doing two things to try to rid yourself of depression:
- Exericse. A couple of studies recently found that (ooh, I feel like I'm writing for the AP wire) fifteen to thirty minutes of "brisk" exercise (I take "brisk" to mean something varied and sweat breaking) thrice weekly worked as well for curing depression as drugs like Zoloft and Paxil did. This is a study from a few years ago that Duke did relating to exercise and depression; however, one of the recent studies that I speak of was also conducted by Duke, and basically reaffirmed those results.
- Go NANNERS! By this I mean bananas. Eat them. Like, two or three a day. Apparently, they boost the levels of serotonin (the neurotransmitter that causes depression if you don't have enough of it) in your brain when you eat a couple of them daily, and said boosting starts happening just three or four days in.

Aside from said physical and dietary solutions, I'm not sure what I can suggest. I do know that depression has also been linked to winter, due to the lack of sunlight, so if you have to stay inside, try to do whatever it is you're doing in a room that the sun's shining into, and have the blinds open and what have you. If this isn't feasible, Sharper Image-type places sell these things (I think they're called solar lamps or something) that have a specific kind of bright light in them that apparently simulates the sun (not to say that they're blindingly bright, that is) in a fashion that's a suitable substitute for actual sunlight, though I think running them is fairly pricey as far as the electric bill goes (Jesus Christ, that sentence was seriously unwieldly). Also, if your parents/siblings will tolerate one, and you're not allergic, a pet might help. Not a snake or something, I mean something furry and suitable for petting. Hanging out with pets is shown to reduce stress and lengthen your life, amongst many other things.

Well, I hope I've helped out in some way. Oh, and In Flames and Soilwork FTW!

P. S. - Electric Rain, your mom is AWESOME!

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 10:19 am

Skim read some of the posts here.

Life has it ups and downs. I only recently (last year and a bit) understood why I had had many ill experiences in life and barely any friends ever - I have a mild form of Aspergers Syndrome. All makes sense now - school, friendships and work issues in the past.

I had years of bullying at school, and because I was sent for 4 years to boarding school I had problems literally 24/7. It was like prison to me. I could have become the suicide kid or whatever, but instead I developed a very tough exterior, gave up on the prospect of having friends and became tough inwardly. It was only when I got into my twenties that I started to enjoy life, rather than just surviving it. To this day, I have acquaintances but no friends, with the exception of my wife of over 11 years - she is all I need to be happy.

I find good hobbies critical in my wellbeing, they get you very involved in something positive, rather than just moping in the corner.

Sure, as you say Skyone - we all have friends are here. It doesn't matter about the age range or what someone looks like, or whatever - we all are geekish and a bit nerdy and we all share a common interest here - whether it is reading about project making or doing it. What you shouldn't do is leave the forum, then you will feel more depressed. It is like losing friendships...

I met the lady who became my wife at work when I was 29 years old; it subsequently meant we both had to leave our jobs a few months later, but who cares, we both found other jobs fine.

You are still a youth - you, like me, may not achieve happiness for several years yet, however you will do. Be positive. Decide what you want from life and do it.

DK · Post by DK » Wed Nov 28, 2007 11:54 am

I know how you lot feel. I'm a 17 year old single video game nerd with little social life

Last year I felt really sh*tty(censored by me, but was the only word I could think of to describe my mood) and so started drinking heavily, about 2/3 pints a night. Really doesn't help but at the time I felt like it was the only thing keeping me going.

I think college really changed it for me. Met a big group of people who I love hanging with, no more bullies and to be honest it was a nice change of scenery too.

But yer, still hate being single. Most of the people I hang around with are couples, so it sorta makes me jealous that they are all so happy together. But no use in getting a girlfriend for the sake of having one, I'm just waiting for a great one. Problem is that my kind of girl is a tad rare. Where are all the video game loving, ska addicted, pub drinkers?

What I do to cheer myself up these days is play my uke or listen to happy music, none of this Soad or Megadeath. You need SKA!!!!
Either that or some lively punk

Always cheers me up

Well that's my 2 cents

nightwheel · Post by **nightwheel** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 1:01 pm

Kurt, i'm sorry to hear that you depressed, and your girlfriend dumped you. I've only had one real girlfriend in my life so far. We were together for 3 years but then she dumped me for another boy. She was also a grade ahead of me too but still. But for a few days afther a had mixed emotions. Anger, sadness, shock, and depression. But I got over it. This all happend when I was in elementary school. And last year when Steve Iwrin died i was heart broken. He was one of the few celebrities I realy wanted to meet. He was a hero to me. But when he died if felt like the world came to a stop for a few days.
I know life can be a royal pain in butt. But times like this make people better and stronger.
And kurt, as you see most of us her are your friends and really care about you. And if you need some to talk to kurt. My MSN handle is: nightwheel94@hotmail.com . I leave the MSN light on for ya if you need to talk to someone ok. Have a nice day kurt

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 3:57 pm

Well, I wrote her parents a nice long letter about what she's up to. She's up to quite a bit, and almost all of it makes me really depressed. At the very least it will ease my mind knowing they know what's she's up to, even if they decide it's just a phase and to let it pass.

In addition, I'm seeing my doctor tomorrow about anti-depressants.

Talking to people helped a lot too, even if they're all sick of hearing about it by now (even though they won't admit it).

What would really help is a girlfriend or even a single girl I like to hang out with, but, well, those aren't something you can exactly get a prescription for, or go out and buy. I'm not sure where I would find one of those, but, well, neither are any of you!!!

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 4:47 pm

Still thinking about anti-depressants? Dude, seriously, suck it up!

Really... I mean, you read my post, right? (Yeah, I know it was long...) Look at how effed up I am, and I'm doing alright!

I don't need friggin' drugs! I'm telling you man, listen to some j-pop or something. It really puts a smile on your face!

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 6:26 pm

Depression runs in the family, I'm told. Two family members I KNOW OF have been hospitalized for severe depression. I figure that I might as well stop it before it gets that bad.

Also, it's not exactly fun not being happy for more than five minutes at a time.

I may be over-reacting about this whole thing, but a clear head would sure help things a hell of a lot.

Post by **Skyone** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 6:39 pm

Nice story, Electric Rain. Made me happy to know there are people in the world like you.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 6:54 pm

Skyone wrote:Nice story, Electric Rain. Made me happy to know there are people in the world like you.

Ya, makes Sky feel better about himself.

I would make anti-depressants your last resort. Try any other way you can think of to feel better, its better to just not use drugs if theres another option (you ever watch the commercials, all of them say that thoughts of suicide can be a side effect). Your doctor will probably say the same thing, unless he thinks you really need help.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 8:17 pm

Kurt_ wrote:What would really help is a girlfriend or even a single girl I like to hang out with, but, well, those aren't something you can exactly get a prescription for, or go out and buy. I'm not sure where I would find one of those, but, well, neither are any of you!!!

You can in some countries (Thailand?) or street corners. I really wouldn't ever suggest it though.

(I'm just being flippant)!

Edutainment · Post by **Edutainment** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 8:22 pm

Ecksem Diem wrote: - Go NANNERS! By this I mean bananas. Eat them. Like, two or three a day. Apparently, they boost the levels of serotonin (the neurotransmitter that causes depression if you don't have enough of it) in your brain when you eat a couple of them daily, and said boosting starts happening just three or four days in.

I actually read that recently on Wikipedia. I totally meant to start that, and bananas are yummy so it's like a pretty good treatment.