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For a long time I have apparently seemed depressed to my parents. I'm going to confide this to TL, just like I confided my last blog, the near preggers one.
I feel happy. I feel like things are going great right now, but only to a point. I feel great when I'm around my girlfriend, when I'm around friends, and when I'm having a good time. It seems however that I just can't seem to put those feelings into outward emotion because for the last several years I have seemed depressed to my parents. I am 17 right now, and I'm going to take all of you readers down a short trip of a 17 year olds priveleged memory road.
segment A, the beginning.
A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, called the south. I live in a large-ish city in Tennessee and am slightly compressed by the state. I'm going to begin my story with my 1st world problems, being my exodus from religion.
*note* I still have a religion, but this event was semi traumatizing and has a lot of merit in this blog.
I was shot out of my religion after 8th grade when I left my religiously affiliated school for a secular school (the only one in my city), basically people were angry and they wanted me to stay so they got aggressive. This did not blow over for 2 years, there were times when I knew people were talking about me, the worst case was someone calling me a drunkard because I was napping in the sun. I'm going to go in chronological order, for orders sake though. I did not leave my religion by any standard, I was kind of tossed out when people started harrassing me, cornering me, and being genuine fucktards about a decision not entirely made by myself.
This first world problem serious issue tended to give me grief for years to come and I still have not come to terms with my religion. The issues included when I left for the new school and had to restart from scratch when I couldn't go anywhere near my old friends because I would get harrassed. I and my new school were defamed in the house of worship I went to, through written articles and op-eds specifically about me. Yeah it was petty, and it definitely got to me. Things did not get better. at this time either, only more awful things like people questioning my integrity as a person. Obviously this affected me immensely or I wouldn't still have lingering issues with it, but I can say that it had the foremost effect on me as a person in the realm of happiness.
That was freshman year in highschool
The religious issues continued and took their foremost hold on me the next year. I at this point had, had some personal success. These included becoming the youngest Model UN chair for my conference in the South, along with various other successes. I was more or less incorporated into my school at this point and things were looking up, until #first world probs some serious issues occured.
My Model UN success fell straight through. I became known as, "the worst chair ever," and was usurped by my co-chair. My total confidence fell through the floor. I had done something that was thought as impossibruh and then I did it. Then proceeded to fail miserably at it. It didn't help that my chair was known as "creepy david" for hitting on girls way under his age limit as a 24 year old male, and for being best friends with the guy who runs the conference. These two people who are objectively terrible people, who both need a reality check, destroyed me with machiavellian philosophy (well principian philosophy) and I was crushed. It was around this time that things got rough for me. I began to just fail at everything. I just fell further and further into sadness. I was emanating sad. Nothing went my way for the entire year, debate we alled failed, and even more personal failures including my school's refusal to put me into higher classes because I got a B at geometry. Yeah B's suck.
Then some of the worse things occured to me. I got my heart broken, twice, badly. This is where things got interesting. Things became worse, and better, rapidly, and then worse, seemingly just as rapidly. I was set up by a drunk girl at a Model UN dance, go figure, and the girl was a year older than me. Let's call her... FERICITEH! felicity. She was semi-immature for her age, less mature than me at the time (and thats fucking saying something), immature in looks (yeah in the most and least perverted ways) and immature in her experiences. I dated this girl for about a month, never said the word love to her, because I never did love her. I made out with her 1 time and then she never spoke to me again. I don't know why, but I was crushed. I hated it, I felt like a fuck up, and in truth, I was. This girl eventually talked to me again, but I was done with it and I got over her. She definitely contributed to sadness, but she was also my first kiss and arguably the worst break up I ever had. Consequently its the only breakup I've ever had.
this part is going to be a bit long so bare with me
+ Show Spoiler +
Then there was another girl, she was of my religion and part of the reason I don't enjoy my religion nearly as much. Their is a term for them, I'm not going to use it because I don't want to betray my religion here if possible, but lets just say she is the definition of a totally insecure, semi-hot, bitch. She wasn't crazy pretty, she had a sort of cute side that was magnified by the factthat she was one of only a couple girls in the friend group and the hotttest one, despite the fact that, that isn't exactly some crazy feat of success considering the girls looks in retrospect. This girl had a thing for me, and she had it bad. I'm not an amazing looker by any means, but I guess I have something going for me  . We are going to call her, (along the lines of felicity) SERENITEH! Serentiy (she is the complete opposite of that though  ). She made my life hell. First I thought life was gonna be great, I had to choose between the two girls during that year and it tortured me, I hated it, but at the end I picked "Felicity," but I picked her for a reason, thats why I thought life was gonna be great. Serenity and I were never a couple, lets get that straight first off, but she confessed her love to me, over facebook because she lived in Canada. She confessed her love for me, and I thought it was all bro, then shit went down. She decided she wanted to date my best friend at the time. She then decided no one could ever know she ever liked me and that she promised to make my life as miserable as possible if I were to tell. Somehow I was hurting her by being held hostage and that I was being an ass for speaking my mind about it. This fucked with me, I became incredibly sad and this forced me to just get sadder. There seemed to be no other option. She tore my friend group from me. I eventually just broke the tacit agreement and was like FUCKDISHIT and told the world about all the terrible shit she did to me and everyone in our friend group hated her. Revenge is sweet  .
That was sophomore year.
The story ends where I am now. I ended junior year this year. I repeated the issues stated here except with more success in my life and more school work. That and I have the best, most loving girlfirend in the world, and as my last post stated, we are quite close.
Here is the end result of my blog, What I am asking the good people of TL. My parents (mostly my mom) tell me that I don't seem happy. I feel much happier than I have been in the last several years and an upcoming senior. I am in a great relationship, and I'm sure I'll post about that in a [girl blog] here sometime anyways. My question to TL is that these 2 years + 2 years of middle school shit, which is too old and too common to really write about unless its in a humourous manner, should it really matter that much? Why do you think that "twinkle" in my eye, that happiness that I emanated at some point is supposedly gone? I am at a loss, I soul search constantly but I don't find much other than the fact that I need to grow more as a person. I am whole I think, but I feel like there is a big gaping hole somewhere there that is causing this.
On the side, I'm not depressed clinically though I did check out for that stuff if I had really wanted meds in the worst part of sophomore year, but being the guy I am, who my further blogs might reveal, discipline and not drugs is big for me.I am not some starving child, I'm not a dying kid, but I feel like this should be resolved at some point, my gf has made some serious differences on my outlook and the girl issues really had a lot to do with it, and she fixed most of it <9 her.
Now as a quick TL;DR, Some awkward shit happened, some bad shit happened, some overblown shit happened, and now I wonder why people who I know continually ask if I am sad or depressed because I seem to put off that kind of an aura. I feel happy, yet something seems to make people think I am sad. Also happy for me is kind of relative since I've basically had some hard-ish first world probs issues in my short highschool life, the same issues most people deal with.
If anyone has specific questions, feel free to PM me  .
I'd also like to repeat that I know most of this stuff is not bad by any means, but for a 15/16 year old especially a slow maturing one like I was/am these things had a large effect, so no I realize some of these issues don't really seem to be big, but some of them have had a huge effect on me.
 
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9935 Posts
hey. i think you're doing great. you seem to have a pretty good understanding of where you are in life, and you already recognize that happiness can be so relative. it's hard to be radiating rainbows all the time when you start catching glimmers of how weird the world is.
for people saying you seem sad. are they happy people themselves? do you respect their opinions? a lot of people your age will get very insecure when people don't constantly express approval and smile and groupthink. your parents probably genuinely care about you though, so why not just ask them what they think is wrong? =) explain to them that you feel just fine, just a little confused about these "you look so sad" comments.
you'll do great. believe in your own judgment, it's served you well so far in your young age and will continue to do so as you get older! you'll find things you are interested in and can be passionate about, and that's when you and everyone you know will see how happy you are to be alive!
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You're a teenager. In your parents eyes you went from happy little toddler to emotional grownup in such a short time span they can't realize you just have your own problems to deal just like they themself have. They were used to seeing you playing in the sand but suddenly you think about stuff and they see the difference but don't understand why.
My own parents and most stories I've heard all have that in common. The parents don't understand. To be honest they don't or you don't think they understand. Either way someone doesn't understand and everything is misunderstood. Just talk to them and it will go away when they start to know you as an teenager/adult and forget how you used to be in your pre-teens.
If you feel happy then you are happy. Some people just don't show it outwardly or doesn't feel the need to. People who know me can always tell if I'm happy, sa or angry because it just show easily on me. Maybe you are different, but so what?
Keep doing what makes you happy and then it will show.
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Yeah I think you're doing fine and no one is happy all the time. What intrigue says.
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instead of highlighting all your negatives why dont you highlight all the positive events?
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If you say that you're fairly happy (no one is happy all the time for sure) and that you have a great relationship going on, then it seems things are going pretty well for you in the emotional realm.
I feel like many people here can relate to your experiences -- I know I can. But keep on keeping on - you're only a junior in high school (though I'd say that when my experience with depression really went full-blown).
Also, do you mind me asking where in TN you reside? In Knoxville myself, and it seems religion is absolutely everywhere no matter where you are in the state. XD
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sorry, "am I happy" is not a question anyone can answer but yourself. If you think you're happy, if you feel happy, you are happy, end of story.
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Man, I had the same issue for the longest time. People always thought I was depressed when I really wasn't.
Odds are, if you don't think you're unhappy, then you aren't unhappy, regardless of what others think.
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It is kind of the opposite for me. I tell a lot of jokes and laugh a lot with people, but when I am by myself I'm always slightly frustrated (well I also get really irritated at people in general at my school but just don't show it that much haha). For some reason SC2 made me a hardcore perfectionist (and I mean hard fucking core, I got a 97% on a physics test and was super irritated the entire day). While I actually like being a perfectionist, as you get really good results in basically anything you care about because you put so much effort in, now I feel extremely uptight about anything because I am so afraid of making mistakes.
I think that in order to be happy you have to understand what you want in life and to know how to get there, and then just enjoy the ride along the way. It is really just a matter of how well you can deal with pressure right now in HS because, if you are super competitive, shit is crazy haha
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my parents think im depressed. i probably am to an extent but arent we all at some point?
dont listen to that shit. just think everyone is going through the battle called life just like u and me. some were dealt better cards than others but we are still human and all have issues. most people dont show this side of themselves so we tend to think everyone else has all their shit together
trust me they dont, its just normal man. just do what you wanna do and dont let anyone else influence that
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Happiness can range from contentment to intense joy.
If you're content, you're happy. If you're Santa Claus, on prozac, at Disneyland, getting laid, you're really happy.
Somewhere in between is what most people aim for.
To find happiness, I recommend volunteering for a charity, or going for a hike in the woods, or whatever you can do that isn't electronic or designed to instantly gratify. I think the more you rely on things like video games or computers, the less you realize what real happiness is. (This thought is emphasized by the number of blogs on TL where people have trouble with relationships and/or are unhappy)
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On August 02 2012 00:08 Dirkzor wrote:
You're a teenager. In your parents eyes you went from happy little toddler to emotional grownup in such a short time span they can't realize you just have your own problems to deal just like they themself have. They were used to seeing you playing in the sand but suddenly you think about stuff and they see the difference but don't understand why.
My own parents and most stories I've heard all have that in common. The parents don't understand. To be honest they don't or you don't think they understand. Either way someone doesn't understand and everything is misunderstood. Just talk to them and it will go away when they start to know you as an teenager/adult and forget how you used to be in your pre-teens.
If you feel happy then you are happy. Some people just don't show it outwardly or doesn't feel the need to. People who know me can always tell if I'm happy, sa or angry because it just show easily on me. Maybe you are different, but so what?
Keep doing what makes you happy and then it will show.
I definitely agree with this. It seems like my parents try, but they just kind of see me as not happy with my school and thus they transfer that grief to everything I do. Plus all the set backs I mentioned in the blog kind of screw with the way they see my happiness.
On August 02 2012 07:33 Carson wrote:
Happiness can range from contentment to intense joy.
If you're content, you're happy. If you're Santa Claus, on prozac, at Disneyland, getting laid, you're really happy.
Somewhere in between is what most people aim for.
To find happiness, I recommend volunteering for a charity, or going for a hike in the woods, or whatever you can do that isn't electronic or designed to instantly gratify. I think the more you rely on things like video games or computers, the less you realize what real happiness is. (This thought is emphasized by the number of blogs on TL where people have trouble with relationships and/or are unhappy)
I would love to be Santa, on prozac, at disneyland, getting laid. I should make that my quote on TL.
EDIT 1: had to add this one in, since its just kind of stuck with me after I read it.
On August 02 2012 06:06 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
Man, I had the same issue for the longest time. People always thought I was depressed when I really wasn't.
Odds are, if you don't think you're unhappy, then you aren't unhappy, regardless of what others think.
Yeah I think this is going to be my mantra from now on. I'll know when I'm unhappy, no one can tell me my own feelings.
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On August 02 2012 09:20 docvoc wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2012 06:06 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
Man, I had the same issue for the longest time. People always thought I was depressed when I really wasn't.
Odds are, if you don't think you're unhappy, then you aren't unhappy, regardless of what others think. Yeah I think this is going to be my mantra from now on. I'll know when I'm unhappy, no one can tell me my own feelings.
the solution was quite simple as i see.
maybe i can add that its normal that your parents don't see you 100% clear at this young age.
reading your blog i'd also like to add that its 2012, not 1912. You shouldn't care that much about religion. Oh and you'll see girls come n go
have a nice life
On August 02 2012 07:33 Carson wrote:
Happiness can range from contentment to intense joy.
If you're content, you're happy. If you're Santa Claus, on prozac, at Disneyland, getting laid, you're really happy.
why do i think u use drugs -.-
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EPT![[image loading]](http://lh5.ggpht.com/adinochang/R0OJr6IKLzI/AAAAAAAAAWw/d9xjTKnhxxw/s288/grizzly_bear.jpg)
