You are NOT Alone!
You are NOT Alone!
| Author: Elizabeth Drucker |
| Published on: April 23, 2004 |
Do you ever feel like nobody understands you? Does it seem that everyone around you is clueless? Do you sometimes feel like you are the only one who is experiencing certain thoughts, moods, and feelings?
Well…the good news is: YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
Sure, it really sucks to feel depressed, anxious, angry, etc. But it feels even worse to experience all of the above AND think that you are alone, that nobody understands.
When I was in high school (I’m in college now), I thought that I was the only one who ever got depressed. But, that only made me feel worse about myself. Intellectually, I could look at the statistics and be aware that there were other teens like myself. But looking at numbers on a page and seeing the happy smiling faces of your peers at lunch are two completely different things. Statistics are those magical numbers that doctors give us so we know that we aren’t the only ones out there who are experiencing this stuff. Numbers and stats may seem to be comforting when you are in the doctor’s office.
But, what about those kids in the cafeteria? They are ALL smiling, happy, chatting, etc. How could they have any problems? They’re so happy, and they probably always have been and always will be. Right?
WRONG!
I have tried to use statistics to reassure me for as long as I can remember. Sometimes, they work to my advantage, but other times they just stress me out. For example: a certain miniscule amount of students get accepted to Harvard every year. And of those accepted, a certain number had perfect scores on the SATs and were the valedictorians of their classes. Yeah, I did well in high school, but how could I compete with THAT? Those stats just served to make me feel worse.
Then, there are the statistics that tell you how many teens are depressed in America, how many teen suicides there are each year, etc. Okay, so you see that there are so many other kids out there who are depressed. You see the figures on the page, but want to tear that same page up when you observe the goings-on at your school.
Why are they laughing? Why are they all chatting incessantly? Why does it seem that every other teenager at your school is having a blast?
Well, to tell you the truth, they’re not.
When I was in high school, I saw those stats. I hung onto them during the worst of times. Okay, I’m not crazy, I thought. I felt okay when I was in the doctor’s office and she was telling me how many other kids my age she saw. But where were they?
When you are depressed, it’s hard to see past your own misery. Maybe it’s easy to think that anyone who simply seems “okay” is extremely happy and bubbly. Maybe it’s just another cognitive distortion – a trick that our brain plays on us. One of those all-or-nothing thoughts. Okay, so because I’m miserable, everyone else must be super happy, because they are not crying their eyes out like I am. It’s easy to see perfection in others.
I’ve learned that there is not a single mood or mental state that is perfect. Everybody has problems, whether you can see them or not.
I thought everyone else was having the times of their lives. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Recently, I’ve talked to some people from my high school who have told me that they had their own experiences with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, divorces, etc. They were the people the statistics had been talking about. There they were! So I wasn’t crazy! While we all went through different experiences, many of us still thought that we were “alone.”
So here I am, telling you what I wished I had known back then.
Don’t get caught up in the statistics, but know that they are out there!
Courtesy of http://www.suite101.com
