First off, i'm sorry for your losses. I can't say I know what it's like to lose a parent. But i've seen many go through similar stories.
I've had a couple stints with depression, once when my best friends father died and we were in the room to see it, and one recently when I faced the fact i'm really not ready to grow up and search for a house and have a baby and all of this other shit. It all just hit me at once. As for coping, everyone does it differently obviously. Some people will go be social so they get their mind off it, some people hit the bottle, one of the most effective things i've found is that a really good cry helps.
Of course you don't really want to open up and spill your feelings all over the place, but trust me you are not strong enough to keep them bottled up, and if you do you'll just explode. No one is strong enough or should ever keep everything bottled up. I'm going to make the assumption and say you've got at least one best friend, one person you can spill your guts to and they wont judge you, trust me they wont. They don't want to see you suffer just as much as you don't want to suffer. Have a heart to heart with them. Let the waterworks start. A good cry never hurt anyone and never will. Once you start to acknowledge the problem I find it becomes easier to deal with. The people around you will help once they know what's hurting you. Even if you don't feel ready to spill your emotions all over the place in real life, you have friends online too. I'm sure of that. Smogon is a very welcoming place and lots of people will listen to your rant about life (I know I will). For me, I wasn't ready to spill my emotions to everyone so I talked to my good buddy
McMeghan one morning and cried my face off before bed, just to know that I can talk about it. Then me and my boyfriend had a good conversation about it and I cried to him too. Once you talk, it all becomes easier. Don't keep your emotions bottled up, it's not good for you and will hurt you more in the long run. Tell people how you feel and they will help you, they want to help you, no one wants to see anyone suffer.
First of all, thank you for typing that. I very much appreciate your help even though I have basically quit Smogin, I still appreciate that.
I synthesize with your claim that a good cry helps. When I have thought of my dad at home in a sad way I usually go to the bathroom and let the waterworks start. Also I think that maybe I should talk to one of my friends about my father, but the problem is, in the past I never had many meaningful friends, like I hung out with them, went through the motions, but never really talked. My ass was too focused on video games to give a shit but then when I started giving a shit when my dad died there was...truthfully and sincerely, no best friend or real friend to turn to. I cried and hugged people at the wake, one of which was a sort-of friend but we lacked a connection. FortunatelyI had both good luck and the courage to reach out in eighth grade, netting a whole new network of nerdy friends, some of which I've kept even after I've given up most video games. Oh and Nikolay too, he's awesome.
Actually I forgot about my original best friend and one who I'm still okay friends with today: Jack. He helped me get through those tough fall and winter months after my dad died. I enjoyed the times we would walk late in the evening and talk about why my family hated him for some reason (which they did, not anymore.
Something you should know about me is I'm pretty introverted and also only consider people I am comfortable talking and hanging out with as friends, most of the time. Following those parameters I have three friends, only one (Jack) of which I opened up to about my summer depression and I haven't talked about my dad, like ever. Jack used to ask about it though and I wish I said more to him. So back to my original point I think it would be hard to open up to one of my three friends cause one of them is literally half retarded and the other two I don't know what I'd say - I don't actively think about my dad much anymore, even though his loss has had huge effects on me, regardless if I'm conscious of them or not (which I mostly am not).
Since a lot of you guys are responding to the OP and I wrote that a while ago I feel I owe it to you guys to check in and give you an accurate picture of how I'm feeling / my life is.
So, I'm a freshman! First days of high school for me were pretty rough. I walked into home room nervous and a bit unsure. I was excited for my first day a little bit but by the end I felt DRAINED. At least I met a new kid named Dzon (from Bosnia, southeast Europe, how kickass is that) that I feel I could cultivate a friendship with if I ever see him at lunch, which I haven't, only in hallways. Anyway second day sucked almost as much, felt drained, but talked with a girl named Jenelle in Humanities, she's really cool. Third day was as bad as the first and I confided to my babysitter, she always handles me when I'm down / depresso. I also replied to my grandma's text about how the first day went with my news of the first three days, and she called me and talked to me about it, gave me advice. I told her about all the social expectations I was feeling and how there was homework on top of it and I had too much to worry about and she gave me the best advice: One Thing At A Time. Block out everything else and focus on one thing at a time. Then she told me how she believed in me and stuff and I got a little teary. Friday (today) was good the next day, I felt measurably more happy and had my two favorite classes first, and it was overall a great day and a great cross country practice.
Oh yes! I am doing cross country. My first meet was Wednesday which was fucking awesome, came in 75th but who cares. Cross country is legit my favorite thing in the world right now, I love the team we have and the comfortable environment emitted from the coach and the players. And I love getting a chance to run barefoot too on some of the runs or parts of the runs: my hope is that the coach will let me run barefoot in my next meet or the meet after that. That would be amazing.
So yeah I am officially no longer depressed, I have recovered from my stint. A lot of that, I think, was because of me pulling away from the video games and Internet and out into the real world. Video games and Internet seem to fuck you up, man, because Barbara told me about this study where they found that electronics affect your mind the same way - they have the same affect - as drugs like cocaine. The same addicting effect. "This", the scientists who performed the study said, "might account for why it's so hard to pull kids off of their game consoles. My interest for video games and checking the internet waned over a couple weeks, till I became disinterested. Not only was it bad for me, but I had other things to do now, namely cross country, which started in late August. Cross country, again, is so great, it's become a place where I can chill out, be who I was born to be - a runner (if you haven't read Christopher McDougall's "Born To Run", I highly recommend it).
Though I'm not depressed I do have day-to-day school problems, mostly making new friends and whatnot. I'm getting more comfortable with some of my classes, though. And I think I might have a tiny crush on this new girl who runs in the girls cross country. Maybe, too early to tell. Anyway thanks dudes and dudettes for letting me share and peace out.
