Hi, everyone. 

I wanted to do an introductory post and say a little bit about where I've been and where I am now.  This is probably an appropriate time, since i found out about this site, oh, 20 minutes ago?

My depression first started at the beginning of 8th grade.  I became very sensitive about being left out of anything.  If two friends were talking in the hallways, I felt like they were ignoring me, even though looking back I know I was exaggerating.  That was also the first year that school stressed me out.  Tests made me shake and nervous like nothing else.  Somewhere along the road, depression came into my mind.  At first it was sarcasm to myself "I could always just kill myself" or something like that.  I didn't think about it seriously for a few months. 

9th grade.  As the school work intensified, so did the depression.  I thought I had myself hidden pretty well until a friend pulled me aside on Halloween and said that she was worried about me.  She asked me if I was trying to hide something, and I denied everything.  That really urged me to think about telling a friend about my thoughts.  I decided that I would tell my friend Sam first.  We had gotten close recently, and somehow I felt that she was best to tell.  At the end of January, we had a sleepover.  All night I was very nervous and waited until 1am when she asked if I wanted to go to bed to tell her.  I said that there was something I needed to tell her and spilled.  She comforted me and listened to me cry on and on-exactly what I had hoped for.  Later that week I told 4 other friends.  They were all very nice about it- I love them for that.

10th grade: I start to see a therapist.  Work gets harder and I have breakdowns more than ever.  The therapist could not see anything.  I would stress about school and she would tell me "Your grades are fine!" and expect me to be fine, too. HA. My mom then got me a new therapist.  While I have grown to dislike her as a person, she is amazing as a therapist.  I don't even know how, but while I am not as calm as many around me, I have become functional.  I get stressed out less before tests, and she helped me realize that a lot of my thoughts and actions were OCD on a small scale.  I have since limited the hand washing and the perfectionism, and have grown to be proud of who I am.  I still think about suicide, but not as an option.  I think of it as a thinking of my past, and am amazed to see how I have changed since then.