I have had a long history with anxiety and depression. Ever since middle school, my parents were like, “Oh maybe you have ADHD.” So they took me to the doctor and they did the test with all the teachers and I didn’t get diagnosed with that. It was kind of a misdiagnosis for a long time, we thought it was this and that until high school started. Ms. Bell brought up the possibility that it could be depression, that’s when we finally figured it out.
I think it might be the culture, but [my parents] don’t see mental illness as an issue at all. They see it as an excuse to get out of work or doing anything actually. They’re just like, “You’re just lazy, you’re doing this to get out of things so you should work harder.”
It’s hard because I can’t get help for it so I’ve been on my own for all of it. The only resource I have is at school with Ms. Bell, I’ll occasionally go talk to her. But it’s mainly me working it out on my own. My sister is really supportive because she went through the same thing. But she says I probably won’t get help until I am moved out or 21. At this point I feel like I just got to wait it out.
[I sleep] a lot. Which isn’t that great but it passes time. But the healthy ways are like talking to people. Like me journaling a lot, writing.
My reality is like going outside a lot. Hanging out. That actually doesn’t help. I guess you just try everything and when nothing works you just turn to the dark side of things I guess.
I don’t know [what the dark side is], maybe like drinking, smoking, skipping out on life. You just try to achieve a way out of it but like that’s the only way you can do it. Like skipping school and not really doing anything. I know for a whole lot of people, it’s the reason why grades suffer. It turns into a vicious cycle. Clayton puts such an emphasis on grades, your self worth is equal to how you perform in school. If you have an untreated mental illness then you can’t perform well in school and your self worth is lower and then it just spirals.
I think I have gotten to the point where I just don’t care about anything anymore. School work is just something to do when I am bored. I guess you could see it as like a giant case of senioritis with like but you still haven’t gotten accepted into a college. I just feel like, I don’t know, life is very dull for me. I don’t know how to explain it that well, it’s like I am very bored. Even if I am doing something, I am not getting a lot out of it. As for school, yeah it is more like a hobby now instead of like my main focus. If I want to do my homework, I do it but if I am feeling down I go to sleep. I try to skip school as much as I can. Yeah, that is how it works.
