*sigh*

[sean]

I know this is a really long post, but I wrote it for the few people who might want to read it. It’s over 2,000 words according to MSWord, so if that’s too long just stop reading here.

I was diagnosed with depression on my 13^th birthday, so back in January 2003. The initial causes of the depression were a) my grandfather being diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, which I found out about on Halloween night 2002, b) my struggles with kids socially, and c) my troubles academically at school. What I did was told a few kids on AIM that I wanted to cut myself, one told their mom, who told my mom and the school, etc., so that I was taken to a psychiatrist on my birthday.
A bit of background about my struggles at school beforehand: In 6^th grade, my classmate said to me that “Jews suck”, and being Jewish, I took offense to this. I reported it to the assistant principal, who called the girl in to talk. She started crying, and the principal told me that I was trying to ruin this nice girl’s reputation. I think that’s when I started to actually hate school. Then, in 7^th grade, my math teacher and the same assistant principal, because of my difficulties completing homework, started giving me lunch detentions every day. This was the only social time I had at all, and it made keeping the few friendships I had much more difficult.

Anyways, after I was diagnosed with depression, this one kid at my lunch table (we had assigned tables until 8^th grade) found out about it and started saying stuff to me on AIM like “you should kill yourself you fat freak”. I eventually threatened to print out the conversation logs and report it to the school, which got him to stop, but I never did. Why? I was scared of being thought of as a coward or snitch. This same group of kids at the lunch table, they also enjoyed making anti-Semitic jokes. They would say things like “What’s worse than Hitler and the Nazis killing six million Jews? Stubbing your toe!” and they would then all laugh about it. At that point I had no faith in the school’s administration so I wasn’t about to report that incident.
Another big event in the second half of seventh grade was my Bar Mitzvah. I had it on April 5, 2003. The Sunday before my Bar Mitzvah, on March 30, my grandfather died. He was in a coma and on life support by that time, and my family decided that he would have preferred it if I had gone on with my Bar Mitzvah, so they pulled the plug. I still feel guilty about it to this day. The funeral took place two days later, on Tuesday. At this point I was already overwhelmed, and I barely remember the rest of the week, including the Bar Mitzvah. The only thing I remember clearly is my best friend at the time, who had been my best friend for five years, didn’t show up because he had hockey practice. This friend was Russian, and had moved to the States at the age of 7 without knowing much English. He learned English through talking with me, but he moved to a town over and stopped talking to me. I haven’t talked to him once since that weekend.

Mixed in with all of this was my beginning to question my sexual orientation. I was beginning to become more attracted to guys. Up to this point, my main attractions had been girls, but things suddenly started changing. It took me a long time to work up the courage to accept the fact that I was in fact at least bisexual, but I didn’t tell anyone until 9^th grade, and even then it was only someone I knew online.

Over the summer between seventh and eighth grades, the only big event was a huge fight I had with one of the members of the group of friends I belonged to at the summer camp I attended. I never knew, to this day, what pissed him off so bad, but he refused to talk to me or even be in the same room as me.
Eighth grade went by rather quickly. I was in learning center, or special education, because of my difficulties with homework and organization. I hated it, because I hated being forced to clean out my binders and I wanted the study halls instead. The only big change was me joining an online forum for the first time. It was my first real online interactions, and it provided me with an outlet for shit that bothered me in school without worrying about it affecting my relationships with people I had to see every day of the week. I met one person on this forum, who lived in the same town as my grandmother, who later had a huge impact on me. He was a couple of years younger than me, and I loved talking to him because we liked the same music, video games, movies, etc. Then he became friends with some kids who were bad influences, and he eventually started drinking, then smoking, then sleeping around and using drugs. I remember one incident in which he drank three whole bottles of robotussin just to get high, and because I lived in Boston and he lived near Chicago, I had no way to stop him. For this reason, I don’t like anyone I care about to use drugs. If they do, then I will eventually just break off the friendship for myself. I don’t remember most of the specifics of eighth grade, though, so I’ll move on to ninth grade.

In ninth grade, I moved on to the high school. The first day of school, I went to the cafeteria at lunch time and realized I had no one to sit with. That’s the only day I ever went into the cafeteria at lunchtime. From that point on, until I stopped attending that school, I went to the library for lunch. I would use the computer. Ninth and tenth grades, I had literally no friends at school and no social life. The only friend I had was my neighbor, and one other kid who went to a private school. They both grew increasingly distant in the years through high school. Both went to private schools, and had new groups of friends which I wasn’t a part of. Kids continued to pick on me emotionally in high school, joking about my religion, or my bad handwriting, or my lack of friends. It slowly ate away at me, and I kept hoping that the people would mature, and stop picking on me. I was wrong about that hope, because it got even worse once 11^th grade started.
11^th grade started out the same way as 9^th and 10^th grades, except I came out to my parents in November of 11^th grade, or November 2006. I did this to explain some of my anxiety at school, which my dad then said was a “bullshit” reason to do badly in school, and didn’t accept it at all. I still don’t think he really accepts the fact that I’m more interested in guys than girls, since I’m the only one that can carry on the family name. Anyways, after my 17^th birthday, things started taking a turn for the worse. I was getting increasingly depressed, and I started to self harm for the first time, doing things like choking myself or cutting. I can’t explain my exact reasoning, but I think it was caused by hatred for myself, frustration with school, anger at the kids in school. My mom didn’t realize I was doing the self harming but she knew I wasn’t going to school at all. I missed two straight weeks of school minus one day, and when I finally went in I learned my mom had emailed the school’s psychiatrist, who recommended that I be taken to a psych evaluation at an emergency room.

That was my first experience with a psych evaluation, I’ve now had two. I was in the corner where I had no privacy, because it was reserved for psychiatric evaluations. I got to the ER at about 1 PM, and it took 10 hours to get evaluated. The decision was I needed to be hospitalized. The head of psychiatry came down as a favor for my dad, and decided that I could go home until we got me a spot in McLean Hospital, in Belmont, MA. I went into the hospital three days later, on Friday.
I was nervous at first about going into the hospital, honestly, but it turned out at the time to be a great thing for me. I met my therapist there who I still go to, and he honestly helps me a lot. I also met a lot of people whom I thought I could be friends with. Of course, they all were in the hospital too, for emotional reasons, but they understood how I felt, better than most people. The hospital decided that instead of returning to my public school, I should go to a therapeutic school, one where people would be more understanding. Though I fought the idea at first, I finally accepted it, and I got placed in a school in Acton, MA. After I left the hospital, the people I met there all friended each other on Facebook, but none of them added me, which was a huge blow to me. I still hurt from it, two and a half years later.

During the hospital, I forgot to mention, I was given neuropsychological testing, for the third time. This time, the doctors diagnosed me with Nonverbal Learning Disability, which had shown up on the tests that the school system had given me, but they never made the specific diagnosis. The reason for this is unknown. NVLD means I have trouble with social connections, spacial math, and more. I know some people classify it as the least severe form of Asperger’s, but I’m not sure.
The therapeutic school started off pretty well, but over time I became more and more frustrated. Very few of the kids there seemed to want to learn, and most of the subject matter was stuff I had already done. I started feeling isolated at the therapeutic school, as well. I only made a few friends there, and I’ve basically lost touch with them now. Also, every time I went to the clinicians or the case workers for help, I would get brushed off. They would tell me to go back to class. I started not attending class there as well, because I felt it was a waste of time. I also wound up going through summer school as well, something I didn’t enjoy very much. Then senior year started, and I had to start thinking about applying to schools.

I applied to only two colleges, Boston University and Northeastern University, while also looking into gap year programs. I was accepted into Northeastern, and decided to attend school here. My first semester went well, and I got mostly B’s in my courses, but then my second semester I started falling apart. I wound up withdrawing from one of my classes, and failing the other one, and that put me on academic probation. I was living at home, and I think that the commute to school, a good 45 minutes each way, wasn’t helping me to attend all my classes. I told my parents this over this past summer, and after some arguing, we found an apartment near campus, where I’m now living.
You’re probably now wondering why I wrote all that history, what all the purpose is of it. Honestly, I want to get some advice on what to do with myself. I’m having trouble with a few of my classes, and my social life is still almost completely nonexistent. The only person that I hang out with at all is from these forums, in fact. It’s made more difficult because my roommate, who happens to be my sister, is always working until at the earliest 5, sometimes until 10 PM. As the semester has progressed, it’s been harder and harder for me to get out of bed. More and more frequently I’ve been getting this feeling that nothing is worth it, that life is repetitive. I don’t know what to do with myself anymore; it seems useless to try when my life will always end in failure. I honestly think about suicide every day, but something keeps me from doing it. Partly, I’m too much of a coward; I don’t want to deal with the physical pain that is involved with dying. The other part, I think, is that I don’t want to hurt the people I love. The problem is, I see myself as a disappointment to my family. Maybe they would be better off without having to deal with me, I don’t know. I know I’m a financial drain on them since I’m attending college, and I’m not even doing well so it’s not like I’m making their investment worthwhile. It’s just hard to wake up every day…

If you read this, just please help me. I dunno what to do with my life. It just feels like it’s a worthless waste of space and air, and that ending that waste would be the best for everyone.

[pakaya]

Listen man, everyone in this world has got problems...I mean look at me, I had problems too and you were there to give a solution...Man, what you should do is start your life again. Wake up tomorrow morning and think that you have just woken up from your 12th b'day. I know it's a weird thing to do, but just forget about the bad incidents that happened in your past. EVERYONE IS MEANT TO BE LOVED - no matter what. Let others insult you, your religion, race etc. just be patient. I'm a Buddhist and I believe in Karma. They will get the return for what they did to you. your main objective should be to get through college and get a good job. Life is a wonderful thing & committing SUICIDE is not an answer. Who knows, maybe all those who offended you might end up working for you someday...Dude doesn't matter even if you are a loner. I know that I'm a loner, but i enjoy life. Hang out and TRY to make some new friends. if you think that you're a disappointment for your family, try to make them proud. Get through college, get a good job and make them proud. take care of them. You're young & you have a wonderful life ahead of you. Just think, there are people who are in a worse position than you are. Don't give up man, No one in this world is dumb. Don't degrade yourself. It all depend on your will. If you really put your heart to it and study, you'll actually get good grades. And being a bisexual, there's nothing wrong with it. just live with it. Not everyone's the same man. PEACE!

[hillenbrand02]

try not to dwell on the past as much and just give yourself a chance at a clean slate. Join a few clubs and try to meet some people, I bet if you try you can make a friend. Shit sucks, but you have to move on and stay strong because you cant go back

btw, as a kid in a suburb of boston with 66% jewish people, im really fascinated by the fact that you encountered antisemitism in this area. Crazyyy

[sean]

Originally Posted by hillenbrand02

try not to dwell on the past as much and just give yourself a chance at a clean slate. Join a few clubs and try to meet some people, I bet if you try you can make a friend. Shit sucks, but you have to move on and stay strong because you cant go back

btw, as a kid in a suburb of boston with 66% jewish people, im really fascinated by the fact that you encountered antisemitism in this area. Crazyyy

You're probably from Newton/Brookline? I'm from Wellesley, but I was stuck at a lunch table that had kids that were anti-Semitic.