[semiunbalanced]

Preface: I was diagnosed with depression when I was in High School but after looking and studying my history it was found that I have dealt with depression since I was seven years old. According to past records, I went up to my mom at the age of six and told her that I was lonely. When that got ignored it only got worse. I was seven years old when I told her I wanted to jump off a bridge and disappear. She didn't take me seriously. She thought I had watched too many movies. When I got upset and cried, I usually just took it out on myself. My parents never understood why I got so upset but it was mostly because I couldn't get myself to shut up. I used to cry the night before my Birthday (starting at age 5 and continuing on until about 12 years old) saying that I was going to miss the previous age and that I didn't want anything to change. I didn't want to grow up too fast and I had just gotten the hang of being the previous age. Apparently, I was very intelligent for a kid my age. My parents were never worried though. I never learned how to cope with it.

Since then a lot has happened. It has been recognized that my mind is a scary place to live, and that a lot happens in a short amount of time for me. When asked to write down my thoughts for fifteen minutes, over half of them were about death. I guess I'm just frustrated because I feel really alone in this. Most of my friends hit a depressive state around their teenage years and have since grown out of it or are learning that it's not the lifestyle they want to live. For me, it's a serious disorder that I am going to have to live with for the rest of my life. If I lived with it as a six year old and am now still trying to find my way as a nineteen year old, clearly it isn't just a "stage" for me. Many that I know have grown tired of being there for me or it becomes too much for them. They don't know why I'm not "growing up" or why I keep slipping up. They don't understand that age plays no factor in it for me. It doesn't matter if things get better. I still have the chemical imbalance in my brain that triggers depression. Medication screws with my anxiety and the combination of the drugs sends me spiraling.

I don't really know if I'm looking for advice... maybe just a support system? Maybe to know that other people understand where I'm coming from? That it's not a stage that lasts a few years for some and then when they find their place, they grow out of it? That the phrase "It gets better" doesn't do anything for me? That this is something I'm going to have to cope with forever? Anybody else like this?