I guess this is my introductory post.

This is just my current situation. If I continue this blog I'll probably write about my past, because my school counselors seem to think it has something to do with me getting put on suicide watch every year.

Hi, I'm sixteen, and I live in Idaho. And this is where most people stop listening. They assume that a teenage girl living in a conservative state has no right to feel depressed because it's just hormones or girl drama. I might agree, except that I've had anxiety since I was eight and and depression since I was eleven. I've never really been to any therapists besides my mother's Christian counselor (once) because my parents don't believe in mental illness, and my father doesn't even believe in going to doctors at all because "God will take care of you if you are meant to live." With all this Christianity, one can imagine it's kind of hard not believing in God in my house. Just today, my mother took me out to lunch so she could tell me how I didn't need therapy, but I just needed God. I agree, to some extent, that I need to have faith in something, but God isn't it, I've found. It makes me feel pressured, and I can't stand to delude myself into something that I can't logically believe in because it makes me feel good.

Most people don't really notice the depression. It isn't because I hide it or anything, or that "i hyd mah emotuins undr a mask, but insde im dyin," like how most people tend to perceive teenage girls. I act sad, and I look sad most of the time. But often people just don't notice. Firstly, I don't draw attention to it, because it depresses other people, and secondly, I think most of my peers haven't quite gotten out of the protagonistic mind set of kids. It's hard to validate other people as having feelings because you're in your own head. Or maybe people don't care. I don't know, whatever it is, people don't notice.

I'm trying to help myself out since I'm not allowed to go to therapy at this point, but I feel as though I keep sinking. I thought it was just situational, because I went through a bad break-up a couple months ago, but when I could freely acknowledge that good things were happening in my life, and I should've been happy, and I still wasn't, I knew something was wrong. I recently got a hedgehog, who I named Clark, because I read that small animals are good therapy animals. I acknowledge that I love this little creature more than most people, that he's great for distracting me because I have to take care of him, and I should be happier, and I'm really not. Clark helps to a degree, but in terms of happiness, I just can't do it. Nothing makes me feel anything anymore. That's the worst part about depression. It's literally nothing. And what can you combat nothing with? Well. I don't know.

It's gotten to the point where I'm self-harming now. I don't cut my wrists or anything, but I cut on my knees and I hit myself a lot. All I wanted was a release of endorphins that my brain doesn't make on its own anymore. I guess things are pretty bad now.

If anyone reads this, I hope that you have some advice. If you don't, that's okay too. I just hope I made you feel like you weren't alone if you feel the same way I do.